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Prayer M e e t i n 


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LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 

A uthor of ' 6 Christ and His Friends, " " The Unexpected 
Christ," etc., etc. 


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Fleming H. Revell Company 

Chicago, New York & Toronto 

Publishers of Evangelical Liter atur e 

MCMI 




COPYRIGHT, igOI, 
BY FLEMING H. 
REVELL COMPANY 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

mar. 11 1901 

Copyright entry 
CLASS CLsXXc. N». 
COPY B. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Unused Rainbows g 

The Healing of the Hills ...... 15 

How to Make a Bible Grow .20 

The Black Pickle . . . . . . 24 

The Secret of a Light Heart 27 

The Lost Chord in Christian Life . . . . 32 
Sugar-Coating the Ills of Life . . , . .36 
V The Comfort of the Hymns ..... 42 

The Happiness of Soul-Winning 47 

Living One's Religion 52 

The Art of Inspiring Others by Appreciating Them . 57 
The Oil of Consideration . . . . . 61 

The Characteristics of Goodness 65 

Making the Church Beautiful . . . 70 

The Christian's Wings . . . . . . .74 

Breathing Room for the Soul . . . . . 79 

Streams of Spiritual Life . . . . .S3 

The Lord's Candles . . . . . . . 87 

The Things That Last 91 

Seeing Things as They Are . . . . . 96 
How to Get Rid of Yourself . . . . . . 100 

A Crown Full of Stars 104 

Is Life Long or Short . 109 

Multiplication of Blessings through Sharing . . 113 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Making Life Peaceful by Making it Important . .118 

A Life on Fire 121 

The Difference between Sympathy and Pity . .125 

The Harp-Strings of the Soul 130 

In What Respect Can the Christian of To-day Imitate 
Jesus . . . . . . ... .135 

The Value of Castles in the Air 140 

The Risen Life ........ 145 

The Beauty of the Summer Fields . , .149 
The Moods and Tenses of E very-cay Life . . .154 

The Blessings of Hard Work 160 

The First Flush of Autumn . . . . . . 164 

The Bad and the Good Kind of Sensitiveness . . 170 

Vacation Religion .176 

Living Up to Our Visions 1S0 

The Ups and Downs of Christian Life . . . . 1S4 
The Christian's Three Homes 190 



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There are still living among the islands of the 
Penobscot Bay, on the coast of Maine, the de- 
scendants of the early English and French voy- 
ageurs who came to that land of pine trees more 
than two hundred years ago. They are a simple, 
quiet folk, who earn a rather hard living by rais- 
ing a few sheep, catching fish, and digging clams. 
Their houses are built of the flat stones that are 
found on the shore, laid up in mortar made from 
burned clam-shells and beach-sand, and roofed 
over with poles and matted masses of long sea- 
weed. President Eliot of Harvard College, who 
has studied these people on their native heath, 
estimates that one of these Penobscot Bay her- 
mits can support his island home, even when the 
family is quite large, on a cash outlay of fifty dol- 
lars a year. 

In the past the acquiring of that fifty dollars 
has not always been an easy nut for the islander 
to crack. But, as they say out West when the 
railroad comes through a town, "a boom" has 

9 



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struck the islands of the Penobscot. Within the 
past three years evidences of prosperity have been 
seen on every hand. The islanders have been 
building larger houses, wearing better clothes and 
more of them, and have generally been putting 
on more of an air of civilization than they have 
ever known before. It has not been the return 
to the gold standard, the change in the tariff, or 
any other of the changes known to politics, that 
has brought this wave of prosperity to the Penob- 
scot. No. All this sudden access of prosperity 
is attributed to the gathering and sale of what is 
known on the islands as * 'rainbow driftwood," a 
kind of fuel which not only gives out heat, but 
which pleases the eye with colored flames, some- 
times showing all the colors of the rainbow. 
Indeed, this wonderful driftwood has not only 
the rainbow to recommend it. In addition to the 
color-tinted flames that beautify the fireplace, the 
wood appears to be alive, and emits many splut- 
tering and explosive sounds that seem to tell of 
storms at sea. 

The wood has been drifting about the Penob- 
scot Bay and coming ashore on the islands off and 
on for a dozen years or more, while the inhabit- 
ants of the little stone houses with seaweed roofs 
have been using it for fuel because it was easier 
to pick up wood on the shore than it was to go 
into the forest and cut it. They were entirely 
ignorant of the aesthetic qualities which make 
this wood the delight of a fashionable drawing- 



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room on a winter evening. These hermit fisher- 
men are not very romantic ; their hard struggle 
for the necessities of life makes them severely- 
practical, and they would have gone on frying 
flounders, boiling tom-cods, and steaming clams 
with wood worth twenty dollars a cord through 
all time to come, no doubt, if some yachts from 
New York had not happened to call at the islands 
three years ago, and discovered how much beauty 
and romantic novelty was going to waste in those 
little Penobscot fireplaces. As soon as the fash- 
ionable yachtsmen and their lady passengers saw 
the spiral rainbows coiling around the black ket- 
tles and heard the musical echoes of spent storms 
among the heaps of glowing coals, they wanted 
to capture some of them for their New York man- 
sions, and they engaged all the wood they could 
get, paying large prices for it. 

The war with Spain came on and disturbed the 
trade a good deal during 1898, but it has started 
up with vigor since. The fishermen make a busi- 
ness of collecting and drying the wood, and the 
returns have been so large that now they cook 
their flounders and clams on splendid modern 
stoves and ranges, much like those of the people 
to whom they sell the wood. Most of this 
precious fuel is slabs, blocks and edgings that 
were dumped into the Penobscot River from 
saw-mills a great many years ago. This drift 
floated about with the tides and currents until it 
became water-soaked and went to the bottom, 



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where it formed great bars that impeded naviga- 
tion. For the last twenty years the government 
has been dredging out the channel. That brings 
this muddy wood up to the surface again, and 
when it is dumped out into the salt water its 
enlarged and extended wood cells become deposi- 
tories for salts of soda and various combinations 
of iodine and chlorine which give the rainbow 
tints to its flames and the explosive utterances as 
if in protest while burning. The great storms 
that sometimes sweep across the bay cast this 
"rainbow" driftwood at the feet of the fishermen. 

One cannot read of this rainbow wood without 
remembering two other rainbows of far wider 
blessing to the world. The first we hear of the 
rainbow is away back on Mount Ararat, when 
after their long voyage Noah and his family came 
out of the ark and built their altar and worshiped 
God. And the Lord entered into a covenant with 
them, and promised that so long as the earth 
remained he would never again destroy its in- 
habitants with a flood, but that seedtime and har- 
vest should follow each other until the end of 
time. And when the Lord sought for some 
appropriate sign that should always remind them 
of this comforting promise, he selected the rain- 
bow as the most appropriate and beautiful pledge. 
And so he said to Noah and his children that 
whenever the storm should come and the rain 
beat down until their hearts would likely be 
tremulous with fear after the flood they had 



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known, when the rain had passed and they saw 
the rainbow spanning the sky they should remem- 
ber that this was God's pledge never again to 
send a deluge of waters on the earth. 

The New Testament also has its rainbow, and 
a very beautiful and precious rainbow it is. We 
are told about it in the book of Revelation. 
When John saw the throne of God in his wonder- 
ful vision, * ' there was a rainbow round about the 
throne, in sight like unto an emerald.'* What a 
beautiful pledge of God's mercy and love! We 
need not fear to draw near to him in repentance 
and confession of our sins since there is a rainbow 
round about the throne, for that rainbow means 
mercy. 

On another occasion John saw a mighty angel 
come down from heaven, clothed with a. cloud, 
his face like the sun, his feet as pillars of fire, and 
"a rainbow was upon his head." It is thus that 
our Saviour comes to us from heaven. His face 
is like the sun, for he is "the Light of the 
World" ; his feet are like pillars of fire, and they 
show us where to walk. Through all the clouds 
of our sins and troubles which he carries for us 
the rainbow upon his head gives us hope and 
courage, for it shows us that God loves us and is 
seeking to save us. 

But how many people there are who treat this 
heavenly rainbow as carelessly and indifferently 
as the islanders of the Maine coast did their prec- 
ious rainbow fuel ! The rainbow about the head 



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of Jesus and the rainbow around the throne of 
God which promise forgiveness and hope to them 
are treated as though they did not exist, and they 
go on living without comfort or cheer from the 
heavenly rainbow. We must use the rainbows 
God gives us if we are to get their blessing. 



THE HEALING OF THE HILLS 



In the summer days there are many people 
who, thinking of physical health and a rest of 
mind and body rather than of that high spiritual 
uplift which he no doubt meant, are using David's 
words as they turn away from the rut and routine 
of business to seek the needed refreshment. It 
is with a sigh of thanksgiving as well as a deep 
breath of hope that the tired man says, as he 
checks his trunk for the high places of the north : 
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
whence cometh my help." The hill country has 
healing in its deep fastnesses for the weary multi- 
tudes of the city. 

My baby, who has spent the four happy sum- 
mers of his buoyant life on earth on a great hill- 
crowned farm in New Hampshire, and who 
thoroughly agrees with David, was being led in 
his prayers the other night as usual by his 
mother. When it came to the place where chil- 
dren of many generations have said, "If I should 
die before I wake, ' ' he suddenly started up with 
the inquiry: "Who dies us?" His mother was 
rather startled, but replied as composedly as pos- 
sible that that was a matter which the Lord took 
care of. "Well," said the impulsive youngster, 
"if the Lord dies us, then I don't love the Lord!" 

15 



16 THE HEALING OF THE HILLS 



Here was a very startling situation, but his 
mother still held her ground and told him that 
the Lord took us to a better place; that if we 
were good when we died he met us and took us 
to heaven. Instantly the persistent four-year-old 
exclaimed: "Is heaven a farm?" 

Now I confess that the boy may have inherited 
some of that, for I cannot think of heaven with- 
out something of the freedom and breeziness and 
out-door feeling of the hills coming into my ideal 
of it. 

The hills are full of healing because it is there 
that the woods grow in their fullness and perfec- 
tion. Oh, the blessedness of the woods! The 
woods are full of bird-nests. There the crows 
hold their conventions ; there the jaybirds play 
their sharp pranks; there the yellow hammer and 
the woodpecker do their carpentering and exploit 
their beauty ; there the partridge rears her brood 
and the fox lurks to make a meal of them. Deep 
in the woods, where the spring seeps out at the 
head of the little canyon, the ferns, rare and 
delicate and fragrant, grow in abundance. There 
the mosses cover the rocks and all nature is sweet 
and gentle. Even the trees are full of healing; 
the pine and the balsam fir make the air redolent 
with a perfume full of God's own medicine for 
tired men and weary women. 

The woods are full of precious things of every 
sort. Jonathan, David's best friend, once found 
a bee tree in the woods when he was nearly 



THE HEALING OF THE HILLS 17 



starved, and filled himself with the sweet honey. 
And the record says his eyes grew bright, though 
they had been dull and lifeless until he found the 
wild bees' hive. The woods are full of berries — 
blackberries and raspberries and huckleberries 
—and if there be a breathing-place in little glades 
among the forest the wild strawberries stand up 
on a stem as long as your finger and grow red 
and sweet in the summer sun. 

Margaret Sangster sings of it well in her little 
poem, 4 4 In the Heart of the Woods" : 

Such beautiful things in the heart of the woods ! 

Flowers and ferns and the soft green moss ; 
Such love of the birds in the solitudes, 

Where the swift winds glance and the tree-tops toss ■ 
Spaces of silence swept with song, 

Which nobody hears but the God above ; 
Spaces where myriad creatures throng, 

Sunning themselves in his guarding love. 

Such safety and peace in the heart of the woods, 

Far from the city's dust and din, 
Where passion nor hate of man intrudes, 

Nor fashion now folly has entered in. 
Deeper than hunter's trail hath gone 

Glimmers the tarn where the wild deer drink ; 
And fearless and free comes the gentle fawn. 

To peep at herself o'er the grassy brink. 

Such pledge of love in the heart of the woods ! 

For the Maker of all things keeps the feast, 
And over the tiny floweret broods 

With care that for ages has never ceased, 



: 

18 THE HEALING OF THE HILLS 



If he cares for this, will he not for thee — 

Thee, wherever thou art to-day? 
Child of an infinite Father, see ; 

And safe in such gentlest keeping stay. 

The hills have healing in them because it is 
there the spring brooks are born. Nothing is 
sweeter than the evolution of a little brook. 
First, there is the wet, spongy place, where the 
wild flags bloom, and the ferns are thick ; and a 
little farther down a few drops of water ooze out 
from under a stone and drop down over another ; 
and a little farther on it begins to trickle and then 
to gurgle and get a song in its heart, and the 
birds and the squirrels and the cottontails and 
the wild fawns drink at its side and thank God. 
And soon it gets courage and burrows out for 
itself deep holes under the dark rocks where the 
trout hide, and then rushes forth over the great 
boulders and splashes white in the sun, making a 
sight so beautiful that the little dark water ouzel 
dives into it for very delight. Thank God for 
the brook that runs among the hills ; the water is 
sweet and clear and cool, and its whole career, 
from the time it oozes out from under the rock at 
the canyon head until it pours its courageous tide 
into the mountain lake, is full of courage mingled 
with beauty. 

The hills have healing in them because they lift 
themselves high up to catch the breath of the 
clouds that do not come down into the low val- 
leys. They get up close to God and speak to him 



THE HEALING OF THE HILLS 19 



first, and he gives them gifts to hold as trustees 
for the wide plains that are far away. 

We should learn lessons from the hills. The 
closer we get to God and the more completely we 
open our hearts to receive his rich blessings, not 
only the happier we shall be ourselves, but the 
more blessing and benefit we shall be to the 
world. We ought to catch David's spirit, and N 
seek our comfort and our strength from high 
sources. Whenever men are sick or weak or in 
trouble there is always a temptation to seek for 
help from sources that are beneath them. If a 
man yields to that he is lost. But sickness or pain 
or trouble may be a blessing rare and precious if 
thereby we are brought into closer fellowship 
with the high hills of God. 



HOW TO MAKE A BIBLE GROW 

Did it ever occur to you that the Bible is a 
different book for every earnest man or woman? 
When you think of the Bible you think of your 
Bible, not somebody else's Bible. And that is 
but natural, for it is the same way that we judge 
our friends. Our friend is different to us than 
he is to any one else, and in our thought of him 
he is a different man, in many ways, than he is in 
the mental portrait drawn by some other person 
whose friendship with him is as close and intimate 
as our own. So the Bible is a personal book and 
belongs to each of us in a peculiar way. One of 
the special blessings of becoming a Christian in 
youth is that it gives our Bible a good long period 
to grow in beauty and blessing. 

I was very much impressed, recently, in making 
a pastoral call on a lady who had but a few weeks 
before been greatly afflicted by the death of her 
mother, by another phase of this growth and 
development in a Bible. The mother, who had 
gone away to heaven, had been a very devoted 
Christian woman through a long life and had 
dearly loved her Bible. The sorrowing daughter 
brought me that precious book to examine. It 
was an old-fashioned looking book, bound in the 
thick leather so common a hundred years ago. 

20 



HOW TO MAKE A BIBLE GROW 21 



But thick and heavy as the binding had been, it 
was pretty well worn through, and was frayed at 
the edges from much use. And a great many 
chapters showed the evidence of having been read 
and re-read over and over again. 

One very interesting characteristic of this Bible 
was that a great many places were marked with 
the occasion when they had been used to the dear 
woman's comfort. Here was one that was read 
at the funeral of her child. Here was another 
that had been her comforter when she was sick. 
Here was still another that she had exulted in in 
a time of great happiness. And so all through 
the Bible were these little wayside shrines where 
the good woman had paused in her pilgrimage to 
worship God, or to find the comfort or the inspira- 
tion she needed on hard days, or to give expres- 
sion to her joy and gratitude in times of 
happiness and rejoicing. 

I was greatly interested at hearing the daughter 
tell how delighted she had been to find that many 
of these passages which had been such a comfort 
to her mother were now of the greatest possible 
comfort to her, though she had never noticed 
them with any particular interest until after the 
great sorrow of her mother's death came upon 
her. And with tearful eyes she turned to me 
and asked: "Why is it that these verses which I 
did not before care for seem so new and precious 
to me now? Is it because my mother loved them 
so, and I loved them on her account?" I told 



22 HOW TO MAKE A BIBLE GROW 



her I thought there was a deeper reason for it. 
Her mother had found the comfort of these heav- 
enly words in times when great sorrow and trial 
had come to her own life, and had marked them 
then, and the daughter now rejoices in them 
because she has grown into the same experience. 
She has grown up to her Bible. She had not 
found them before because she had not specially 
needed them, but now that she needs them they 
are waiting there, running over with blessing and 
comfort. 

As I handed back the worn and soiled book I 
said: "That book must be a great treasure to you 
these days!" 

"Ah, yes," was her answer, "a big fortune 
would not buy that book from me. When I see 
that, mother seems nearer to me than at any other 
time. I see her again in her rocking chair by 
the window with the Bible on her knees and the 
old far-away look of heavenly peace on her face." 

I walked away from that home thinking how 
many people there are who are losing beyond all 
possibility of recovery by not planting out a 
Bible in youth, so as to have it growing and blos- 
soming and bearing its fruit through all the years 
of life. 

To make a Bible grow well it must be well 
tended ; you must dig about the roots ; find out 
the deep, hidden meanings that lie underneath 
the surface; rejoice in the spiritual suggestions 
that come only to those who dig for them, who 



HOW TO MAKE A BIBLE GROW 23 



seek for them as a miner digs for gold. A Bible 
to flourish must be well watered ; watered with 
tears of repentance as well as with the tears of 
thanksgiving and gratitude. It must have lots of 
sunshine and air ; its pages must be turned fre- 
quently and given a breathing chance in influenc- 
ing and molding your life. When you are sad 
you must go to it for solace ; when you are glad 
you must go to it for words of praise ; when you 
are earnest you must go to it for inspiration to do 
daring deeds; when you are discouraged you 
must go to it for the good cheer that will give 
* 4 songs in the night." Air your Bible in this 
way, and it will never get old or dry. It will 
keep new and fresh, and out of such old pages as 
the "Shepherd's Psalm" or the "Twelfth of 
Romans" or the "Thirteenth of First Corinthians" 
or the "Third of Revelation" there will spring up 
new fountains of water that will make glad the 
desert places of life and cause the roses to bloom 
from out the parched ground of trial. 



THE BLACK PICKLE 

I had the privilege, lately, in Newcastle, Pa., 
to spend several hours in the largest tin-mill in 
the world. Steel bars are brought in and rolled 
into plates. When these have come to the proper 
shape and thinness they are put through a pickle 
which is called "the black pickle." This pickle 
is made of a very strong acid, which cleans off the 
scales which have been formed on the plates dur- 
ing the heating and rolling necessary to bring 
them to the proper shape. After this pickling 
process the plates are put into great annealing- 
pans, and are run into a furnace where they are 
kept ten or twelve hours at a dull red heat. They 
are then run through the roils cold three or four 
times, after which they are annealed again at a 
lower temperature; and then they are given 
what is called "the white pickle," which is not so 
strong as the first, and is intended to scour and 
beautify the plates. They are then ready to 
receive the plating of tin which fits them for their 
commercial use. 

As I watched this very interesting process, it 
seemed to me that that was very much the way 
in which God makes men and women into good 
Christians. We have to go through many a roll- 

24 



THE BLACK PICKLE 



ing and crushing process, humiliating to our pride 
and self-sufficiency, before we can be brought to 
the proper shape in which God can use us. 
Then, if there be scales and rough edges which 
have come to us in the experience of life, God 
often puts us into a pickle of discipline that 
brings us out smarting, it may be, from the sharp 
acid experiences through which we are compelled 
to pass, but brings us out with many of the little 
scales and meannesses of life taken away. Then 
God has his annealing-pans where we are com- 
pelled day by day to remain in the hard, steady 
heat of constant toil under the heavy strain of 
trial; but if we do not rebel against God's provi- 
dence, and yield ourselves to it in a submissive 
spirit, there will come a time when God will put 
us through the white pickle, and we shall know 
gentler experiences that are meant to beautify 
us, and make our characters attractive and 
gracious, and finally we shall come to be the per- 
fect men and women that he wants us to be. 

I picked up one of the tin plates that had just 
come out through the rollers after its bath in the 
boiling hot tin, and was astonished to see that I 
could behold myself in it as in the best mirror. 
So God cannot be satisfied with us until, through 
the chastening and discipline of life, he brings us 
to such a submissive and flexible and gracious 
spirit that we bend ourselves with perfect readi- 
ness to fulfill his purposes and our hearts are so 
purified from all the black scales of self-indul- 



26 THE BLACK PICKLE 



gence and pride and sinful desire that they are a 
mirror to his blessed face and he sees his own 
divine features reflected in our thoughts and 
ambitions. 



THE SECRET OF A LIGHT HEART 



I have no faith whatever in any quack remedies 
for so curing the ills of life that one may be per- 
mitted to live and work, fight life's battles, and 
at last meet the great enemy with a cheerful face 
and a light heart. But there are certain great 
causes which always produce certain results, and 
it is well for us to be thoroughly intrenched in 
the knowledge that may help us to be thus 
equipped for the duties of life, for next to having 
a pure heart there is nothing can come to us in 
this world so good as a heart that is light and 
glad, that goes bounding along the way, happy to 
be alive and busy about its work. 

The world is full of heavy-hearted people. We 
meet men and women every day of whom when 
we look into their eyes we know that their hearts 
are like lead. Sometimes they are rich people 
who have in abundance the things that men most 
envy; but neither a soft-cushioned carriage with 
thoroughbred horses nor a richly-caparisoned 
yacht with fast-speeding sails is able to outfly the 
enemies of gladness which load down the human 
heart with burdens that the world has no power 
to take away. 

I am convinced that no message on this subject 
is of any value unless it may apply to us all alike, 

27 



28 THE SECRET OF A LIGHT HEART 



rich or poor. It must be universal, and within 
the reach of every one, to be of any great com- 
fort. But there are some things that can always 
be depended upon to lighten the heart of its load. 

I think the first secret of a light heart is friend- 
ship. We can never be quite in despair so long 
as we are conscious that we have good, strong, 
noble friends whose hearts are true to us. It is a 
great mistake to live in this world without culti- 
vating friends. I do not mean doing it in any 
commercial way in order that they may stand by 
you when you need them; but I mean that our 
hearts should come into sympathetic touch with 
good people, so that we shall draw daily gladness 
and sunshine from the knowledge of their sym- 
pathy and appreciation. We must not forget that 
the basis, or rather the nucleus, around which all 
our great friendships must gather is our friendship 
with Jesus. Jesus said to his disciples, and 
through them to us: "I have called you friends." 
If we are living in a relation of friendship with 
Jesus, then we have constantly one great window 
of light into our hearts. 

Another secret of a light heart closely akin to 
friendship, and indeed only another phase of it, is 
in the consciousness that some people who know 
you well think well of you and regard your work 
with kindness. The action of such a conscious- 
ness is very quick. Who of us has not risen in 
the morning from an almost sleepless night, gone 
through the breakfast without enthusiasm or 



THE SECRET OF A LIGHT HEART 29 



appetite, and thought of the work of the day to 
come with fear and trembling; but the postman 
brought with him a remedy all but miraculous in 
its effect? It was in the shape of a letter full of 
thanksgiving and appreciation and breathing a 
kind regard. How quickly it acted on the tired 
nerves! The headache was swept away at once; 
all the languidness was gone. Life was worth 
living; your work was not a failure after all. 
Somebody cared and admired, and so you went to 
your work with a glad heart and faced the day 
with music in your soul. 

Now it is always possible for us to have that 
kind of help to give us good cheer for the begin- 
ning of the day. For if we live honestly toward 
God, living up to our light, trying to please God 
in everything, we shall certainly have the con- 
sciousness that God, who knows us better than 
any one else, is pleased with us. He knows that 
our work is worth while ; he knows us clear to 
the core, and he smiles. Is it not true that much 
of the unrest and disquietude of soul from which 
we suffer comes from the feeling that, however 
much other people may be pleased with us, God 
is not pleased? There is only one way to lighten 
your heart of that feeling, and that is 4 4 make it 
up" with God. I have known friends to be at 
outs because one had wronged the other, and all 
joy and peace were gone, faces lowering, and 
hearts heavy. Then I have seen them afterwards 
when frank apology and confession had been 



So THE SECRET OF A LIGHT HEART 



made, and the wrong-doer had been forgiven, and 
faces were bright and shining; hearts were light 
as a bird's wing. We have wronged God, and 
our hearts are heavy. The way to get them light 
and happy is to frankly confess our sins and 
receive forgiveness. 

Another secret of a light heart is a conscious- 
ness that we are helpful. I have always noticed 
that it is more likely to be the person in a family 
who is waited on and petted and spoiled by all 
the others who is heavy-hearted, than the one 
who carries most of the family burdens. Selfish- 
ness never has any wings. Selfishness is like 
heavy dough that will not rise, but sinks 
together, soggy and sour. You might as well fill 
a ball with lead to make it bounce as to fill your 
heart and life with selfishness to make it cheerful 
and happy. Jesus was happy, though he saw the 
cross before him, because he saw how much he 
would help and bless the world. So not one of 
us will ever see a day so dark, or will ever know 
a time when our hearts will be so depressed, but 
that the consciousness that we are helping some- 
body, and that our work is making it brighter and 
happier for another, will bring a ray of cheerful 
sunshine home to us and make life bearable. 

Finally, a certain secret for a light heart lies in 
the assurance that this is God's world and not the 
devil's, and that though we cannot see how it 
may be coming out for the best, God does see ; 
and though we do not behold it, there is a bright 



THE SECRET OF A LIGHT HEART 31 



side to any present difficulty, and ere long the 
bright side will turn itself toward us, and God 
will make us know that all things are working 
together for our good. 

Count them over again for your soul's comfort, 
these secrets of a light heart: Friendship, appre- 
ciation, consciousness of being helpful, and 
God's guidance. Now any one of these could 
keep us from despair, but every one of us may 
have them all. You may have them just as 
surely in the narrow path of the wage-earner as 
if your income were counted by millions. You 
may have them in the kitchen or the foundry as 
certainly as in the parlor or the counting-room. 
They are within your reach because you are men 
and women, children of God; and they are doors 
which God sets before you, and which no man or 
woman other than yourself can shut. 



THE LOST CHORD IN CHRISTIAN 

LIFE 



There is no more vigorous statement in the 
Bible than the statement of the Lord in the third 
chapter of Revelation concerning his distaste for 
a lukewarm Christian life. How sharp and clear- 
cut is the declaration: 4 4 So, then, because thou 
art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will 
spue thee out of my mouth/' The trouble with 
these people was that the heat had gone out of 
their religion. It was not entirely frozen up, but 
there would have been more hope of obtaining 
service from them, perhaps, if they had never 
been heated with religious fervor than there was 
after they had fallen into that lukewarm condition. 

There is a certain pungency that belongs to 
some things, and if you take that away, although 
it may look very much the same, it is absolutely 
worthless. It is like the salt which, having lost 
its savor, is good for nothing, and can only be 
cast out on the waste heap. It is like the yeast 
that had lost its power to leaven ; it is as useless 
as a piece of earth or stone. It is like a seed 
when the undiscoverable and indescribable prin- 
ciple of life is gone ; it is useless. So there is a 
something between hot water and lukewarm 
water that, having disappeared, takes away all 

32 



THE LOST CHORD 



33 



the value with it. Really hot water produces 
steam, but lukewarm water produces nothing but 
disgust. These people had lost the power to 
boil; they had lost their steam in religious life. 
There was no rush of spiritual emotion; there 
was no glow of inspiration; there was no effer- 
vescence of religious feeling; there was no 
bounding of enthusiastic joy. 

It is not always easy to explain the difference 
between two Christians, one of whom is luke- 
warm and the other steaming with spiritual life ; 
but we all recognize the difference at once. The 
one depresses us spiritually, and the other arouses 
us. When we come in contact with a Christian 
personality whose enthusiasm is always in a glow 
it brightens and sparkles and runs over into our 
own natures. It thaws us; it warms us when we 
come near to it. When people are in that condi- 
tion they respond readily to the influence of the 
Spirit of God. Philip, the evangelist of the early 
Christianity, was a man of that type. An impres- 
sion from the Spirit of God sent him into the 
desert; another impression from God's Spirit 
sent him climbing into the chariot beside the 
eunuch, where his overflowing Christian faith 
won the man's heart to Christ. 

Now, the engineer, when he finds that his steam 
has gone down, and the water is lukewarm in the 
boiler, knows that only one thing can save him, 
and that is a new fire under the furnace. And so 
when a Christian finds himself in a lukewarm 



34 



THE LOST CHORD 



spirit — a spirit which is distasteful to his Lord — 
the thing for him to do at once is to fire up. The 
reading of the Bible and prayer will help, but 
many people die down into lukewarmness for lack 
of exercising their abilities for the Lord, 

Harriet Beecher Stowe's daughter relates an 
occurrence which took place soon after the 're- 
moval of the family from Cincinnati to Bruns- 
wick, Me. On a cold day, when the ice had 
formed over a little pond near their new home, 
Mrs. Stowe called the children to go with her. 
Then, full of enthusiastic memories of her child- 
hood days in Litchfield, Conn., she herself ran 
and slid on the ice, but on looking back saw that 
the children had not followed. They were hud- 
dled in a little group on the bank. Then for the 
first time it occurred to her that this was their 
first experience with ice, and she hurried back to 
them, exclaiming: "Well, I feel as helpless as a 
hen who has hatched ducks." 

We can all imagine how soon a little experience 
taught those children that their feet were adapted 
to slide on the ice and awoke their dormant 
enthusiasm. So there is in every human heart 
the capacity for the enthusiastic love and service 
of Jesus Christ. But as the child must learn the 
intoxicating delight of feeling the gliding ice 
under his feet and the breath of the wind on his 
cheek in order to enjoy the skating, so to put our 
religion at the boiling point we must thrust our- 
selves into the midst of the fight, we must take 



THE LOST CHORD 



35 



hold upon whatever service offers, and give our- 
selves up to it with devotion. As we work, the 
enthusiasm, the gladness, will come. 

Let no one undervalue the importance of this 
vital breath of Christian life. It is very little we 
can do without it. And we are not only helpless 
ourselves without it, but we lower the temper- 
ature of the people around us who would make 
steam if we did not drag them down by our luke- 
warm condition. Let us sing with Charles 
Wesley: 

Oh, that in me the sacred fire 

Might now begin to glow, 
Burn up the dross of base desire 

And make the mountains flow. 



SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 

I suppose there are few people even among the 
most faithful and loyal Christians who have not 
at some time in their lives wondered at that 
strong and vital declaration of Paul: 44 All 
things work together for good to them that love 
God. 9 9 While all who go forward faithfully to do 
their duty, walking by faith where they cannot 
walk by sight, come at last to rejoice in the truth 
of that promise, I think it is very wise for us 
sometimes to bring before our thought the sim- 
ple and understandable ways by which God 
brings the promise into realization in the ordi- 
nary life illustrated in the experience of all of us. 
It will surely take away the bitter taste of the ills 
we have to endure to feel that we are getting 
more than value received for the endurance. 

One of the common ills which most of us have 
to meet is the poverty and narrowness of our 
means. There are comparatively few people in 
the world who are not compelled to hold daily 
counsel with themselves in order to devise ways 
and means by which they may keep their ex- 
penses within their income. But this poverty has 
many blessings. It does much for every one who 
accepts the situation cheerfully. First, it makes 
us self-reliant. We are self-supporting. There 

3$ 



SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 37 



is in that thought a great joy. It adds to our 
self-respect. It enlarges our manhood or our 
womanhood to feel that we are giving an honest 
return for our living. Second, it inspires in us 
loyalty and fidelity of character. We cannot go 
star-gazing; we cannot be careless or indifferent. 
We must fulfill our obligations. That is a great 
safeguard to character. Third, it binds families 
together in a bond of fellowship far stronger and 
more sacred than that ordinarily known among 
people who do not have to co-operate in their toil 
in order to bring the needed comforts and bless- 
ings of domestic life. No man can measure how 
much happiness that adds to the world. Fourth, 
it gives a sympathy with other workers that noth- 
ing else can give. It is "a fellow feeling that 
makes us wondrous kind." And, finally, though 
I might add many other blessings to the number, 
it has a tendency to keep us in a spirit of humility, 
and keenly alive to a sense of dependence upon 
God, which is the proper and only wise attitude 
for any man or woman. Riches often cause 
people to feel that they can get along without the 
Lord, and thus bring them to destruction. If it 
is our poverty and our toil that keep us close to 
God, then how thankful we ought to be for their 
medicine and discipline. 

Sickness and pain suggest another of life's ills 
which often seems mysterious to us, and from 
which we naturally desire to be relieved. But as 
some one has said, U A man's sick bed is often 



38 SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 



God's flower bed." The suffering of the body 
not infrequently is the cause of the enriching and 
beautifying of the spirit. There are many plants 
that have to be crushed to bring out their fra- 
grance, and there are many souls which never grow 
into sweetness and never give forth the perfume 
of the Christian graces until their weakness and 
pain bring them into humility before the Lord. 

Failure in our plans and purposes, whether of 
a business or social nature, is often a bitter and a 
severe trial for a proud soul. Perhaps some one 
is saying, * 4 Surely there is no way of sugar-coat- 
ing a failure so that it may seem bearable." But 
there is a very wise and genuine way of doing it. 
All it requires is that we shall properly appreciate 
the purpose of our living here, We are not in 
the world to win a fortune for somebody to 
quarrel over after we are dead. Nor are we here 
to make a brief display before men and women 
whose earthly lives are as frail as our own. But 
rather we are here to build up characters that 
shall be enduring. And everything we undertake 
to do with an honest, true purpose, and to which 
we devote ourselves with a manly or womanly 
spirit, leaves its deposit in character. Our busi- 
ness venture may succeed or fail; our benevolent 
purposes may win applause or they may bring on 
us a sneer ; but that has nothing whatever to do 
with the great result which God is seeking in us — 
the building up of a good, strong, pure man or 
woman. So it is often that one man's failures 



SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 39 



are infinitely more precious and glorious in the 
eyes of God than another man's successes. Do 
you think there is no relief in that? There is 
infinite comfort and relief in it. If we have done 
our best, honestly and faithfully, performing 
what seemed to us to be our duty, then we have 
no reason to have the blues or be depressed 
though we have apparently failed. We may 
have failed, but God has not failed in building up 
in us the character which he loves. 

But there are tenderer ills and sorrows which 
get still closer into our heart's citadel than those 
I have mentioned. For instance, the loss of the 
friendship or love of those in whose appreciation 
we have sunned ourselves and whose sympathy 
has added so much to life's sweetness and happi- 
ness. Through some misunderstanding, it may 
be, or it may be through a better understanding, 
our idol has turned to clay; or the drift of time, 
like the sweep of the current, has separated us, 
and is ever more and more separating us from 
the friendship which has meant so much in the 
past. Can there be any good in that? Yes, in- 
deed, there can be much good in it. Friendship 
and love are divine gifts and are never given to 
true souls in vain. No honest man or pure 
woman has ever yet given the heart in a sincere 
friendship or in genuine love without being made 
larger and nobler and more splendid in his or her 
nature. The friend may be lost; but that en- 
largement of soul, that widening of the mental 



4 o SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 



and spiritual horizon, that deepening of sym- 
pathy, is not lost, and never can be lost. And so 
it is true that thousands of men and women who 
have lost their dearest friends and the fondest 
loves of life, and have gone on alone without 
them, have thanked God, even through their 
tears, for the enriching of the soul by the blessed 
gift of a great friendship or an unselfish love. 

Others there are whose friends have taken 
wings and flown away to that realm from which 
no traveler returns. We went with them as far 
as we could, like Paul's friends who went with 
him to the ship when he set sail from Miletus. 
We went down to the very valley of shadows and 
on to the brink of the river with our loved ones. 
There we could only say our prayer for them and 
bid them farewell. But, thank God, we "sorrow 
not as others which have no hope, ' ' for we shall see 
them again and clasp hands with them in eternal 
reunion. Heaven will not make them forget us, 
and what is left of earth will not make us forget 
them. Love is so vital a plant that death itself is 
not a winter long enough or cold enough to kill 
it or to rob it of its power to blossom. And so we 
may think of our dear ones whom we have ' ioved 
long since and lost awhile" as only gone before 
us, and whose presence and fellowship shall seem 
all the more precious to us in heaven because of 
this absence. 

And so of all of life's ills and sorrows it is easy 
to show the 4 * silver lining " within the clouds, 



SUGAR-COATING THE ILLS OF LIFE 41 



And though there may be ever and anon perplex- 
ing experiences too deep for our line to fathom, 
if we go onward with faith we shall not long be 
kept in doubt of God's meaning. Soon our 
hearts will rejoice in the consciousness of God's 
wisdom and mercy and in the evidence of his 
goodness that will teach us that Paul never said a 
truer thing than when he laid it down as a law of 
universal application that "all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love God. ' ' 



THE COMFORT OF THE HYMNS 



I am sorry for the man or the woman who has 
not so absorbed the great Christian hymns that 
they have become part and parcel of the heart's 
life. Nothing else save the Bible has such power 
to give cheer and courage and support in all the 
emergencies of life. The Christian religion is a 
singing religion; it makes music in the heart and 
it easily adapts itself to music. We do not always 
want the same hymns, but the sweet singers of 
Israel have poured forth from their deepest souls 
such a variety of themes that we may all find 
expression in them for our feelings and for every 
emotion that the winds of life awaken in our 
hearts. 

There are times when our exultant souls are 
ready to sing with Charles Wesley : 

O for a thousand tongues, to sing 

My great Redeemer's praise ; 
The glories of my God and King, 

The triumphs of his grace ! 

There are other days when the faith needs 
steadying, when we are in the midst of trial, and 
have to walk by faith and not by sight. Then 
we need George Keith's old "Portuguese Hymn" 
on which to plant our feet : 

42 



THE COMFORT OF THE HYMNS 43 



How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word! 
What more can he say than to you he hath said, 
To you, who for refuge to Jesus have fled? 

There are occasions when the heart dwells in 
the land of pathos and tears are not far away; 
when the spirit is set to a minor key. How 
sweet then it is to sing with William Cullen 
Bryant : 

Deem not that they are blest alone 
Whose days a peaceful tenor keep ; 

The anointed Son of God makes known 
A blessing for the eyes that weep, 

Or, with Oliver Wendell Holmes, to the same 
tune of Dwight : 

Oh, Love divine, that stooped to share 
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear ! 

On thee we cast each earth-born care; 
We smile at pain while thou art near. 

There are hours when memory rises to the 
throne, and we recall the gladness of our hearts 
when first we knew the Lord ; the first happy day 
of our conversion comes back to us. Perhaps it 
is the conversion of some one else whose glad 
testimony brings back with sweet tenderness the 
memory of our own, and then there are no words 
for us like those of Philip Doddridge, to the tune 
of Rockingham: 

O happy day that fixed my choice 
On thee, my Saviour and my God ! 

Well may this glowing heart rejoice, 
And tell its raptures all abroad. 



44 THE COMFORT OF THE HYMNS 



There are still other experiences that make life 
seem narrow and hard to us; days when the mis- 
understanding of friends, the unjust and cruel 
criticism of enemies, trouble us and seem to shut 
us into a lonely little world of our own. Ah ! in 
such an hour how the heart takes wing in Faber's 
sweet hymn : 

There's a wideness in God's mercy, 

Like the wideness of the sea ; 
There's a kindness in his justice, 

Which is more than liberty. 

By the time we have reached the third verse the 
heart begins to lose its bitterness, the healing 
balm of the message begins to have its effect, and 
we revel in the melody of the precious lines : 

For the love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man's mind; 

And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind. 

There are days when the fight is on us, and we 
must take up our weapons and go to the front and 
stand on the firing line, and do our duty bravely 
as soldiers of Jesus Christ. At such a time when 
the devil tempts us to think we are harshly 
treated, and the soldier spirit is getting low in 
our thoughts, how some of the grand old battle 
songs of the church revive our fainting spirits! 
How many a half-fainting soldier has been in- 
spired with that glorious bugle blast of Isaac 
Watts: 



THE COMFORT OF THE HYMNS 45 



Am I a soldier of the cross, 

A follower of the Lamb, 
And shall I fear to own his cause, 

Or blush to speak his name? 

No matter how hard the battle, nor how weary 
we have been with the long march, by the time 
we sing that hymn through to the martial strain 
of old Arlington we are ready to shout before we 
are done : 

Thy saints in all this glorious war 

Shall conquer though they die ; 
They see the triumph from afar, 

By faith they bring it nigh. 

No place in life is so dark that the great hymn 
writers have not been there before us and left 
songs to comfort us. Does fortune and health 
and strength seem to fade, still we may sing with 
Mrs. Bonar: 

Fade, fade, each earthly joy ; 

Jesus is mine. 
Break every tender tie ; 

Jesus is mine. 
Dark is the wilderness, 
Earth has no resting-place, 
Jesus alone can bless ; 

Jesus is mine. 

Have our friends gone away into the future, 
whither we cannot go with them? And do we 
follow on with trembling steps, uncertain of the 
path? How the words of Newman comfort us: 



46 THE COMFORT OF THE HYMNS 



Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead thou me on ! 
The night is dark, and I am far from home ; 

Lead thou me on ! 
Keep thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step enough for me. 

And as we sing the holy light falls round us, and 
our mellowed hearts gain courage to trust God as 
we say: 

So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still 

Will lead me on, 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 

The night is gone, 
And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 

And so there is not a day that passes over our 
heads but some sweet hymn, like "Rock of Ages, 
Cleft for Me," or 4 4 Jesus, Lover of My Soul," or 
4 4 Nearer, My God, to Thee," feeds our hearts 
with the bread of life. 

Let us learn the hymns, commit them to 
memory, treasure them up, and they will grow 
more precious to us as the years go on. And 
after a while, when we have ceased to sing on 
earth, the longing of our hearts, which we have 
sung so many times, will be gratified : 

Oh, that with yonder sacred throng 

We at his feet may fall ! 
We'll join the everlasting song, 

And crown him Lord of all. 



THE HAPPINESS OF SOUL-WINNING 

The writer of the book of Hebrews makes a 
very striking statement concerning Moses when 
he accounts for the refusal of the great law-giver 
to accept a position as a courtier in Egypt, a 
place of high honor and wealth as the son of 
Pharaoh's daughter, and his deliberate choice to 
suffer affliction with the poor and despised He- 
brews, as being because he "had respect unto the 
recompense of the reward. ' 1 Moses expected to 
get more happiness, more joy and peace, more 
splendid results, by enduring the present poverty 
of his people in Egypt and insuring his peace 
with God and his future joy and triumph. And 
Moses got his reward. What a splendid reward 
it was! No doubt, at the time, many a joke was 
made, and many a sneering comment went from 
lip to lip among the young nobles and hangers-on 
around the court of Pharaoh, concerning "that 
young fool Moses," who had thrown away such a 
brilliant career to cast his lot among a company of 
slaves. But when Moses followed the pillar of 
fire through the Red Sea, and stood victorious on 
the other side, while those same young lordlings 
were washed up dead on the shore, the sneer had 
lost its point. Moses' life widened and enlarged 
from the very day he made that noble choice, and 

47 



48 HAPPINESS OF SOUL-WINNING 



God rewarded him richly in this world, and he 
has been having his reward in heaven for thou- 
sands of years. 

So it is all right to look on the reward side of 
Christian work. Even Christ followed on the 
path toward the cross "for the joy that was set 
before him." Let us look for a moment at the 
several kinds of happiness which come to those 
who devote themselves to winning souls to Christ. 

First, there is the happiness of noble work. 
There is a joy in the exercise of one's gifts. 
There is a joy in simply exerting one's powers. 
This is true of mere animal life. The hunter or 
the fisherman will work hard all day long in pur- 
suit of game from the mere joy that comes from 
action and from triumphing over difficulties. 
The soul-winner has that kind of joy in its high- 
est form. He has the joy of using his noblest 
powers in the pursuit of those whom, if he succeed 
in winning them, he will not hurt or destroy, but 
bless in the highest possible degree. The 
hunter must kill in order to have the sweets of 
victory, but the soul-winner has the higher joy 
of making alive. If those who are full of lethargy 
and negligence in Christian circles could experi- 
ence for a little while the thrilling gladness of 
winning a soul from sin and bringing it as a trophy 
to the feet of Jesus, they would realize how taste- 
less is an idle life compared with the life of a 
soul-winner. 

Another kind of joy comes from the sense of 



HAPPINESS OF SOUL-WINNING 49 



knowing that we are right. This is the joy that 
nerves the arm of the reformer who fights against 
odds and yet whose soul is filled with peace 
because he is sure he is doing his duty and is 
pleasing God. The men and women who are 
giving their hearts up to winning other souls from 
paths of sin and turning them to righteousness 
never doubt that they are pleasing God. They 
know that he who loved lost sinners sufficiently 
to come down to earth, putting aside all the glory 
of heaven and giving himself up to a life of pov- 
erty and suffering, finally dying the cruel death 
on the cross that he might save them, will be 
pleased through and through when his disciples 
seek to win these ransomed souls from the mire 
of sin and bring them as jewels for his crown. 
That is a kind of joy in which there can be no 
sting of bitterness or regret. Some joys are 
mingled with sorrow, but the joy that comes from 
knowing that you are pleasing God, that you are 
making happy the heart of Jesus by winning your 
fellow-men to a better life, is a joy that has no 
shadow on it. 

Another happiness comes to us from making 
other people happy. That, indeed, is one of the 
greatest sources of happiness in the world, and 
no one ever has it with sweeter fullness than the 
soul-winner. The deepest joy you can ever give 
to man or woman is to bring to their ears in such 
an attractive way that they will listen to it the 
good news of salvation in Jesus Christ It will 



So HAPPINESS OF SOUL-WINNING 



not only make them happy, but it will make them 
springs of happiness that will go on starting up 
other sources of happiness in other hearts every- 
where they go. 

Happiness also comes from the gratitude and 
appreciation of those whom we have helped. 
One of the sweetest human thoughts that the 
heart of man is capable of knowing is the con- 
sciousness that he is appreciated, that people are 
grateful because he has made their lives sweeter 
and richer. The soul- winner knows that joy. 
For if you win a man to Christ, you not only 
cause him to love Jesus, but forever after there 
must be a kindly place in his heart toward you, 
the cause of this sunburst of joy that has come to 
him. 

Then there is the joy of feeling that we have 
treasures laid up that can be drawn upon for hap- 
piness in what otherwise would be lonely and 
sorrowful times. The soul-winner has that joy. 
Memory's storehouses are filled with treasures, 
reminiscences that recall sweetest victories in 
winning tempted and tried and sinning men and 
women to know Christ as their Saviour and 
friend. It has been my privilege to know a good 
many soul-winnerc after they were old and feeble, 
and were drawing near the end of their journey, 
and I know that such memories were a constant 
source of joy — a joy that neither sickness nor 
poverty nor old age could take away from them. 

And these treasures will not lose their value in 



HAPPINESS OF SOUL-WINNING 51 



eternity. Our temporal treasures, such as money 
and fame, we must leave behind when we die, 
and go empty-handed, the pauper and the mil- 
lionaire alike, into eternity. But the peculiar 
treasures of the soul-winner grow brighter in the 
sunshine of immortality, and we shall there know 
such joy as we cannot now appreciate or under- 
stand, in the reward that God shall give us for 
winning souls, 



LIVING ONES RELIGION 



Gustave Dor6, the great French artist, was 
once traveling in foreign lands. Through some 
accident he had lost his passport When he came 
to pass through the custom house of another 
country, and his passport was demanded, he told 
the custom officer that he had lost it, but assured 
him that he was Dore, the artist. 

The custom house officer did not believe him, 
and said, mockingly, 4 4 Oh, yes, we have a good 
many like you! You are Dore, are you?" 

"Yes." 

44 Very well, then; take this pencil and paper" 
— and he handed these to him as he spoke — 4 4 and 
prove it." 

4 4 All right," said Dor6. And with an amused 
smile playing on his face he took the pencil and 
began to make a neat little sketch of a company 
of peasants on the wharf, with their piles of bag- 
gage, and the children playing about them. 

The custom officer looked on with astonishment 
for a few moments, as the life-like creation grew 
under the pencil, and then said: 44 That will do, 
sir. You are Dor6, for no man but Dore could 
do that." 

That is the way we are to prove our Chris- 
tianity. We must carry our passport in our e very- 

52 



LIVING ONE'S RELIGION 53 



day conduct. • A Christian spirit which shows 
itself in smiling face and kindly words and right 
conduct is the best introduction one can have. 
Sometimes it is a protection better than any 
armor. 

Many years ago a distinguished physician of 
Philadelphia left his house one morning, and was 
hurrying down the street, when he noticed a 
peculiar and ferocious-looking man whose gaze 
was fastened upon him. Being one of the most 
kind and polite of men, he smiled gently, raised 
his hat, and passed on, when suddenly he heard a 
shot. Turning, he found that the stranger had 
just left his home with the insane purpose of kill- 
ing the first man he met. He was the first man, 
but his kind face and benign smile had thrown 
the man off his guard, and the next passer-by had 
caught the bullet intended for him. That smile 
and bow saved his life. 

The Lord takes care of the weakest things 
which stand boldly to do their duty in their own 
place. Paul declares that there is a kind of wise 
simplicity which outwits the devil: "I would have 
you wise unto that which is good, and simple con- 
cerning evil. And the God of peace shall bruise 
Satan under your feet shortly.' ' The best way 
to overcome the evil one is to frankly stand by 
the right, using the common sense the Lord has 
given us, but living in the spirit of harmlessness 
taught us by our Saviour. 

A herd of five thousand beeves were toiling 



LIVING ONE'S RELIGION 



over a lonely trail from New Mexico to Kansas, 
leaving behind them, across the plains and val- 
leys, a swath as bare as if it had been swept by 
the fiery breath of a simoom. Suddenly the 
leader of the herd, a huge steer, started back in 
terror, gave vent to a snort of warning, moved to 
the right and passed on. Those immediately in 
his rear turned to the right or left, and their 
example was followed by each long-horned pil- 
grim as he reached the dreaded spot. When the 
entire herd had passed, a wide, trampled track lay 
behind, but near the middle of this dusty space 
stood a luxuriant island of grass, three feet in 
diameter. A herdsman rode up to the spot and 
dismounted, expecting to find a rattlesnake, a 
creature of which cattle as well as horses have a 
well-founded dread. Instead of a . serpent, how- 
ever, the grass tuft contained only a harmless 
killdeer plover covering her nest, while her wings 
were kept in constant and violent motion. Seen 
indistinctly through the grass, she had evidently 
been mistaken by the steer for a rattlesnake. 
She did not take flight even at the approach of 
the cowboy, but valiantly pecked at his boot as he 
gently pushed her to one side to find that the 
nest contained four unfledged killdeers. In the 
story of the little bird you have illustrated the 
wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of 
the dove which Jesus recommends to all those 
who follow him. 

We cannot carry that sort of credentials in our 



LIVING ONE'S RELIGION 



lives, however, unless we have real goodness in 
our hearts. The Saviour says that out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The 
spring on the hillside gushes out, pouring forth 
the kind of water that is in the secret reservoir in 
the hill behind it ; so, to have good conversation 
and good deeds coming out to view all the while, 
there must be a good heart back of them. The 
clean, frank, open heart — that it is, which, shin- 
ing in the countenance, speaking in our words, 
and living in simple deeds, will tell for the truth. 

4 'John," said an artist to a Chinaman who was 
unwillingly acting as a model, 4 4 smile. If you 
don't look pleasant I'll not pay you." 

4 4 No use," grumbled the washerman. 4 4 If 
Chinaman feelee ugly all the time, he lookee 
ugly." Which is as true of everybody else in the 
world as of John Chinaman. 

But if our hearts are open to heaven's influence 
and we are really rejoicing in fellowship with 
Christ, we shall find cause for singing under all 
circumstances. A friend was one day walking in 
one of the worst parts of London, where every- 
thing was as dirty and hopeless as one could 
imagine, when he was startled by a bird's song — 
the clearest, happiest bird note. He looked to 
see from whence it could come, and saw in a 
small cage hanging by a poor window an impris- 
oned English skylark. The cage was small — just 
a few bits of wood nailed together — but within 
the cage there was a little patch of green sod, cut 



56 LIVING ONE'S RELIGION 



from some meadow. And amid the sod, with 
wings lifted as if for flight, the brown bird was 
standing with head turned toward the sun, sing- 
ing its heart out in joyous rapture amid all the 
dust and squalor around. So God gives his 
dearer singers "songs in the night/' 



THE ART OF INSPIRING OTHERS BY 
APPRECIATING THEM 

Jesus Christ evidently believed that the way to 
get the best work out of a man was to make him 
think well of himself. What wonderful thoughts 
and hopes and ambitions must have been inspired 
in the hearts of his disciples as they listened to 
that Sermon on the Mount, when he applied to 
them, common, ordinary fishermen and tax-col- 
lectors though they were, such strange and beau- 
tiful phrases as, 4 'Ye are the salt of the earth," 
and, 4 4 Ye are the light of the world." It is 
impossible that these men could have listened to 
such words and not have thought better of them- 
selves. If Christ, who was their ideal of every- 
thing that was good and noble and wise, saw in 
them something so splendid as all that, then it 
was surely worth while to be careful how they 
lived and what they did. 

We ought to learn that great lesson that the 
way to get the people to do their best is to appre- 
ciate at its full value the good which they have 
already accomplished and the possibilities for 
good which we see in them. This is illustrated 
everywhere. The employer who appreciates the 
work that is done for him and makes his employes 
feel all the while that he looks on them with an 

57 



58 THE ART OP INSPIRING OTHERS 



appreciative eye, will always secure larger results 
than the man who is forever grumbling and 
harshly criticising his workers. 

The same is true in our social fellowship. If 
we appreciate our neighbors and seek to magnify 
their kindness we inspire and encourage them to 
still greater deeds of the same sort. Often good 
deeds are frozen before they get into definite 
form by the coldly critical attitude of others 
toward the man who would like to do his best. 

Mr. Hall Caine, the novelist, recently related 
the story of a school boy in his definition of his 
neighbor. He was asked: 

44 Who is your neighbor, Johnny?" 

4 'Please, sir, the man who lives next door." 

4< And what is your duty to your neighbor?" 

44 Please, sir, to keep my eye on him." 

There are a great many grown-up people who 
have that same idea concerning neighborly fel- 
lowship, and whenever you get a society in which 
every one is a detective, looking out for some 
wrong-doing on the part of his neighbor, every 
man keeping his eye on his fellow, not with lov- 
ing appreciation in order that he may rejoice in 
his good deeds or may help him to something 
better, but that he may outwit him and check- 
mate him, then you have a little hell on earth. 

Appreciation is the atmosphere in which the 
best deeds of life must always grow. Little chil- 
dren never develop beautifully in any other atmos- 
phere. One of the saddest things in the world is 



THE ART OF INSPIRING OTHERS 59 



to see a little child repressed and discouraged and 
stunted because at every effort to put forth its 
budding powers it is met by harsh criticism. On 
the other hand, what miracles can be wrought 
with wise appreciation to warm the heart of child- 
hood! 

Christian life grows and thrives in the same 
sort of atmosphere. The young convert who has 
just broken away from evil habits and from bad 
associations and come out on the side of Jesus 
Christ and righteousness, needs more than any 
other human being the gentle and considerate 
appreciation of Christians who have been longer 
on the way. I have known some people who 
were not very wise or eloquent or rich, who could 
not do any great astonishing things for the Lord, 
yet their influence in the church was as ' 'oint- 
ment poured forth" because they had appreciative 
natures that rejoiced in a good deed when they 
saw it, and they were always looking for that sort 
of thing, and so every new convert and every 
weak soul making an honest effort to do right 
found in them a sympathy and appreciation that 
was like a summer shower pouring its refreshing 
streams about the roots of a dry and thirsty plant. 

Now it is certainly a very interesting and com- 
forting thing when we can find a beautiful and 
helpful grace that is within the reach of every 
one of us, and this is such an one. The poorest 
speaker can appreciate and welcome the gift of 
graceful and helpful speech in another. The 



6o THE ART OF INSPIRING OTHERS 



man who cannot sing can let his happiness be 
known in another's music, and the knowledge 
that the song has given happiness will inspire the 
singer to nobler melody on the next occasion. 
And so you may go the whole round of our daily 
life and you will find that from morning to night 
you are constantly meeting with opportunities 
where a word or a look of appreciation will soothe 
a wounded heart, heal a chafed spirit and inspire 
a discouraged soul to a new effort to do his best. 

It is far more precious and helpful to save 
people from their defects by pointing out the 
nobility which is possible to them than by forever 
holding their defects before their eyes. Christ 
could easily have found fault with these disciples, 
and could have discouraged them so they never 
could have lifted their heads again ; but when he 
inspired them by telling them they were "the 
light of the world/ ' and "the salt of the earth,' ' 
do you suppose for a moment that their weak- 
nesses, their errors and their sins had ever before 
looked so mean to them? So if you want to 
inspire people to do their best don't talk to them 
forever about their failures, but help them to see 
the beautiful, splendid life which is possible to 
them in Jesus Christ. 

And in so doing we shall also inspire ourselves. 
No man can help another to climb upward with- 
out lifting his own nature to a loftier altitude. 



THE OIL OF CONSIDERATION 

I am constrained to believe that carelessness 
and lack of proper consideration are responsible 
for a large part of the sin and sorrow of the 
world. I think there are comparatively few 
people who deliberately sit down and make tip 
their mind with malice aforethought to do either 
a wicked or unholy deed toward God, or a malic- 
ious and misery-spreading act toward their fellow- 
men. But the great majority of sins both toward 
God and man come because we have yielded our- 
selves to a bad current; we are caught in the 
drift and are swept along without giving the 
proper consideration to our deeds. This by no 
means relieves us of the responsibility in the 
matter, for we are responsible for the current in 
which we place ourselves; but it explains why so 
many people who have many good impulses and 
are often conscious of good purposes are never- 
theless the doers of evil deeds that cause great 
sorrow. Much of the rough grinding of the 
wheels of life upon each other would cease their 
painful grating if we would but pour on them a 
little of the oil of consideration. 

The Psalmist found, what we have often found, 
that it is very easy for us, living in the midst of 
all the wonderful works of God, to become 

61 



62 THE OIL OF CONSIDERATION 



thoughtless about him, so that we look on the 
beautiful scenery of nature and accept the good 
gifts of Providence without either reverence or 
gratitude. But when David was led to consider 
the heavens, and to think separately about the 
moon and the stars, and reflect upon their great- 
ness and beauty, and to meditate on the wisdom, 
goodness and love of the God who made them and 
fitted them with such care for man's need, then 
his reverence and adoration were aroused, and he 
wondered and worshiped. Consideration brought 
him to his knees, and I am sure we have experi- 
enced the same ; it is only when we are thought- 
less and unreflecting that we are irreverent or 
ungrateful. When we give ourselves to reason- 
able consideration we bow down humbly before 
the Lord and worship him with all our hearts. 

In the same way the Saviour aroused the confi- 
dence and faith of the disciples in God's provi- 
dential care. He called them to consider how 
God clothed the flowers and the beautiful 
plants of the field, and to reflect that if God would 
take such care about the coloring of a lily how 
much more certain was his care about his children 
whom he had so richly endowed. Strange that 
any of us should ever allow ourselves to become 
depressed and doubting in spirit with this abun- 
dant evidence of God's care for the smallest 
creatures all about us! It is certainly because 
we do not consider; when we consider God's care 
of the flowers and of the birds, his care over 



THE OIL OF CONSIDERATION 63 



little things as well as great, our hearts are led to 
rest in his arms and find peace. 

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews finds in 
consideration a cure for carelessness concern- 
ing our influence over others. * 4 Let us consider 
one another," he says, 4 4 to provoke unto love and 
to good works." That is, if we are careless we 
are likely to fall into the error of thinking that 
our life is without influence, or that we can afford 
to be indifferent in regard to others, and that 
whether we influence them for good or not is a 
small matter; but when once we consider we are 
shown the falsity of such a position. When we 
consider our neighbors and the people about us, 
and see their needs, and how easily they are 
swept by every wind of influence from the out- 
side ; when we note how easy it is to hurt people 
or to help them; how contagious are good deeds 
as well as bad, we see that it is a matter of the 
greatest importance not for ourselves only but for 
our brethren that we shall live the very best pos- 
sible lives that God's grace may help us to live. 
It is a great encouragement to self-denial and to 
earnest effort to feel that our lives are a constant 
inspiration, arousing high ambitions in those who 
know us. 

Another reason for considerateness is expressed 
by Paul in the sixth chapter of his letter to the 
Galatians. There he encourages us to arouse our 
sympathy and generosity toward those who have 
been overtaken in a fault by considering our own 



64 THE OIL OF CONSIDERATION 



selves. That is, if we will stop and consider we 
shall remember how easy it is to fall into tempta- 
tion, and shall have a fellow feeling for our 
brother. There is no place where lack of con- 
sideration works more harm than in the harsh- 
ness which it causes, many times, on the part of 
good people toward those who have fallen into 
sin. How considerate Jesus was. He never 
condoned sin, he never made sin seem a small 
thing; on the other hand, sin never seemed so 
horrible as when Jesus speaks of it. But how 
tenderly, with what considerateness and sympathy, 
does he deal with the sinner in trying to heal him 
of his sin. The very first element in the compo- 
sition of a good soul-winner must be this element 
of considerateness. We must get so into sym- 
pathy with Christ's attitude towards men that we 
shall be able to put ourselves in their place or we 
can never have for them the sympathy which will 
attract them to Christ. It is said that in the 
fashioning of fine vases nothing can take the 
place of the human hand. The vase much 
receive the delicate, soft, skillful touch of the 
human hand to get its final shape of beauty; no 
machinery, no hard mechanicalness, can do it. 
So in bringing back a poor sinner to Christ, in 
binding up his broken and marred life so that it 
may grow again into strength and beauty, there 
is nothing in this world fine enough save the 
sympathetic and loving hand of the brother or 
sister who is impelled by a heart full of tender 
considerateness. 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 
GOODNESS 

Luke in his description of Barnabas has set this 
seal upon him, that he was "a good man." I 
think it is interesting to notice some of the 
things that constitute a good man according to 
Luke's idea. In the first place, he is a man of 
faith. Luke follows up the phrase, "a good 
man," by saying that Barnabas is "full of faith." 
You never can trust the reliability of any man's 
goodness unless his goodness is built on prin- 
ciple. Principle is the rock on which the house 
of character is built, and if a man is good and yet 
has no good solid principles of faith, he is good 
simply because as yet he has not been put under 
severe temptation. The house built on the sand 
is as solid and as safe as the one built on the rock 
so long as the sun shines and the winds are still. 
But when the winds blow and the rains beat 
down and the floods come, the house built on the 
sand goes to pieces and is washed away, while 
the one built on the rock stands as safe and 
secure as in good weather. So we cannot depend 
on anybody's goodness unless it has its source in 
a heart full of faith in God, which is a guarantee 
for permanent integrity and righteousness. If 
your goodness comes simply because you have 

65 



66 CHARACTERISTICS OF GOODNESS 



good impulses, and have inherited a pleasant, 
cheerful disposition, you will be astonished some 
of these days when the storm beats on you to see 
how quick it will disappear. Goodness, to last, 
must be riveted down, like a lighthouse built on 
a storm-swept ledge, into the bedrock of a great 
faith. 

Another characteristic of goodness, according 
to Luke, is that a good man has a very keen 
sense of the presence of God. 44 Full of the Holy 
Ghost" is his way of saying it. To have that a 
man must be a prayerful man; he must open his 
heart to the Lord with such reverence and child- 
like love that God will take up his abode in his 
heart, and that will insure his goodness. There 
is never any assurance of a man's goodness if he 
is godless. But if he lives in the constant con- 
sciousness of God's presence, then we feel that 
his goodness can be relied upon as being a stable 
and certain quantity. 

Another quality of Barnabas' goodness was 
that he was an appreciative man. He saw good- 
ness in other people, and when he saw it, it made 
him happy. It is a great window in the character 
of Barnabas when we are told that when he went 
to Antioch and saw the great revival that was 
going on there and the multitudes of people who 
were being converted, it made him glad, and that 
instead of throwing a wet blanket over the meet- 
ing by a superior critical attitude, he joined in 
with them in the happiest spirit, and 44 exhorted 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GOODNESS 67 



them all, that with purpose of heart they would 
cleave unto the Lord/' Christ tells us that when 
a sinner is converted on earth the angels in 
heaven rejoice about it, and Luke gives it as one 
of the characteristics of goodness in Barnabas 
that he was glad and happy when he saw people 
being converted. 

Let us never be deceived into imagining that it 
is any sign of goodness in us that we are all the 
time seeing the bad spots in people, and that 
everybody we meet seems to be inferior to our- 
selves in holiness. Be very much alarmed about 
yourself when you find yourself in that condition. 
You may be sure there is something wrong. But 
rejoice when you find yourself unusually sensitive 
and alert to detect goodness in others, and to 
appreciate a disposition on the part of your neigh- 
bors to praise God and serve him. A good man 
longs to see the world converted. He hates 
wickedness because it grieves God and hurts 
men. And when he finds good being done, no 
matter who is doing it, or who is going to get the 
credit for it, he rejoices. 

A still further characteristic of the goodness of 
Barnabas was that he was a kind and gracious 
man. So true was this that he was called the 
44 Son of Consolation. " We ought to be so truly 
good that we shall draw people to us, and to 
Christ because of us, on account of the magnetism 
of the Christlike kindliness that is revealed in our 
conduct. 



68 CHARACTERISTICS OF GOODNESS 



A story is told of Thomas Jefferson that on one 
occasion he was riding in company with two 
young men, when they came to a creek so swollen 
by a shower that the water was up to the sides of 
the horses. As they came to the stream they saw 
a countryman standing on the bank carrying a 
saddle on his shoulders. This man looked ear- 
nestly at the young men as they rode into the 
stream, but said nothing. As Mr. Jefferson came 
along the stranger asked if he could not be 
allowed to mount up behind, and thus be carried 
across. The President of the United States 
reined his horse up to a stone and the man 
mounted. When across he expressed his thanks 
and walked away. Several men who had wit- 
nessed the incident asked: 44 What made you let 
the young men pass, and why did you ask the old 
gentleman?" 

"Wal, if you want to know, I'll tell you. I 
reckon a man carries 4 yes' and 4 no* in his face. 
The young chaps' faces said 4 No,' the old un's 
'Yes'!" 

"It isn't every one," said one of the party, 
44 who would have asked the President of the 
United States for a ride." 

44 What! You don't mean to say that was 
Thomas Jefferson, do you? Wal, he's a fine fel- 
low, anyway. What will Polly say, when I tell 
her I have rid behind President Jefferson? She'll 
say I voted for the right man." 

We want to live with such goodness of heart 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GOODNESS 69 



and graciousness of spirit that our countenances 
and the daily influence of our conversation and 
life will welcome men to Christ. We can only do 
that by living the Christ life, and keeping our 
heart's welcome for him. If he dwell in us his 
presence will be known in the gracious benev- 
olence of spirit which clothes us about as with 
a garment. 



MAKING THE CHURCH BEAUTIFUL 

I have been reading a story of a man who 
attempted a very original way of adding to the 
beauty and attractiveness of the town in which 
he lived. He had a farm on the outskirts of a 
little village, and he took great pride in the vil- 
lage and in the roads about it. Whenever he 
could spare a day, or an afternoon, from the work 
of his farm, he would drive away in search of 
some flower or shrub which did not grow at his 
home, and these beautiful things he transplanted 
to some favorable spot along the highway or in 
the woods or meadows of his own town. He con- 
tinued to do this for many years, and by these 
little holiday pilgrimages this one man increased 
the flora of his native community by over a hun- 
dred varieties. From being rather a barren town 
at first, it came to have a greater variety of flower- 
ing shrubs and bulbs and trees than perhaps any 
other town in the State. 

Now the special significance of the story of this 
man lies in the fact that he did not take all these 
beautiful things and plant them out on his own 
farm ; there would have been no illustration in 
that of any value, for there are plenty of people 
who are greedy for beautiful things if they may 
keep them selfishly in their own lives; but this 

70 



MAKING THE CHURCH BEAUTIFUL 71 



man took the whole neighborhood into his view, 
and sought and labored to make the entire com- 
munity a delightfully beautiful place of residence. 

Is there not a message in this for us in our rela- 
tion to the Christian church? I think we do not 
lay enough emphasis in our thinking upon the 
great necessity of making the church attractive 
in order that it may be effective in winning men 
to Christ and in building them up into a holy 
manhood and womanhood. 

We can all understand that, other things being 
equal, a man who is hunting for a place to buy a 
farm and settle down to bring up his family would 
be attracted by a town which had the reputation 
of having the largest variety of flowering plants 
and trees in the country. It would make a beau- 
tiful place in which to live. The same principle 
works in relation to the church. If the church is 
attractive because it is a garden where the spirit- 
ual graces abound and because they are cultivated 
with rare fidelity, not only will those who are not 
Christians be attracted to it, but it will have the 
power to charm and fascinate and thus hold those 
who have already been induced to settle in it. 
And it will have the power to bless them and 
strengthen them, and will keep their loyal love 
and devotion. 

A good question for each of us to ask of our- 
selves is, 4 4 What can I do to make the church 
more beautiful?" 

There are several things that the average per- 



72 MAKING THE CHURCH BEAUTIFUL 



son can do to add to the beauty and blessedness 
of a church. First, you can be good. The man 
who keeps his own life clean and honest helps a 
great deal to make attractive the church to which 
he belongs; the power of simple unadulterated 
goodness can never be overmeasured. 

Second, you can be brotherly. We all have 
social needs. To attempt to shut ourselves up 
within ourselves is to dwarf and stunt the growth 
of our better natures. Many people in the cities 
are constantly put under temptations to evil be- 
cause they do not have the kind brotherly fellow- 
ship which they need among good people. Any 
one that will cultivate a disposition to be social 
and gracious, and will honestly try to make 
friends with the people who come to the church, 
and will seek to make the people who seem lonely 
and stiff and formal have a good time and feel at 
home, will set blooming a wonderfully fragrant 
tree in the beauty-garden of the church. 

There is another thing we can do, and it is 
within the reach of every one. We can ^cheer- 
ful. I don't believe there is one man in a hun- 
dred, to put it mildly, who appreciates at its full 
the value of cheerfulness to the people who have 
to deal with us. There is no place where cheerful- 
ness is at a higher premium than in the church. 
People come to church usually after several days' 
intermission of toil and struggle, and are often- 
times weary and bruised at heart. Whether they 
know it or not, they need to be cheered up. 



MAKING THE CHURCH BEAUTIFUL 73 



They need that somebody shall 4 * speak a word in 
season to him that is weary/* When one is in 
that condition, just to look in the face of some one 
who is cheerful and happy-spirited, and to receive 
a kindly word and a hearty hand-shake, is to put 
new courage into a half-discouraged heart and 
make life seem worth living again. A very few 
such people who work at it all the time can make 
any church in a large city so attractive that it will 
be packed with people sniffing their sweet per- 
fume. 

One other thing is within the reach of every 
one, rich or poor, scholarly or ignorant, popular 
or unknown, and that is charity in the treatment 
of others. I am not speaking now of the giving 
of money; I am speaking of the charitable spirit 
in discussing other people. Any person who 
invariably compels the tongue to speak charitably 
helps marvelously to make the church attractive 
and beautiful. The world is such a cold, critical, 
suspicious, uncharitable place that if you let it 
get abroad that in a certain church there is an 
atmosphere of kindness and brotherly love and 
cheerful graciousness and charitable consideration 
of the infirmities and weaknesses of others, that 
church will not be able to hold the people who 
are wanting to move into that kind of a climate. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WINGS 



The devil never deceives men and women more 
completely than when he makes them believe that 
the Christian life is dwarfed and cramped and 
narrow. How he must grin in hideous irony 
when he sees young men and women turn away 
from Christ because they want to live a joyous, 
buoyant and happy life. It is the Christian life 
that has wings and not that of the worldling or 
the sensualist. 

Christianity ministers to faith and hope, and 
they are the strong wings of the human soul. 
Carlyle says: 4 4 Belief is great, life-giving. The 
history of a nation becomes fruitful, soul-elevat- 
ing, great, as soon as it believes. A man lives by 
believing something, not by debating and argu- 
ing about many things. M The Christian who 
waits upon the Lord becomes strong in the great 
wing of faith. The other wing of hope beats in 
harmony with it. Blue, depressed, desponding 
people are always frail and uncertain reeds on 
which to lean. Paul says, 4 4 We are saved by 
hope." Hope buoys up the soul and encourages 
it to daring deeds. Given the pinions of hope 
and faith, and the soul mounts up in trustfulness 
to fly on the path of duty indicated by the will of 
God. 

74 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WINGS 



Mr. Moody was standing with a dear friend at 
his garden gate one evening, when two little chil- 
dren came by. As they approached Mr. Moody's 
friend said to him: 44 Watch the difference in 
those two boys. ' ' Taking one of them in his 
arms he stood him on the gate-post, and stepping 
back he folded his arms and called to the little 
fellow to jump. In an instant the boy sprang 
toward him and was caught in his arms. Then 
turning to the second boy he tried the same ex- 
periment. But in the second case it was differ- 
ent. The child trembled and refused to move. 
The man held out his arms and tried to induce 
the child to trust to his strength, but nothing 
could move him. At last he had to lift him 
down from the post and let him go. 

4 4 What makes such a difference in the two?" 
Mr. Moody asked. 

His friend smiled and said: i4 The first is my 
own boy and knows me; but the other is a 
stranger's child whom I have never seen before." 

There was all the difference. The man was 
equally able to prevent both boys from falling, 
but the difference was in the boys themselves. 
The first had faith and hope in his father's ability 
and kindness and acted upon them, while the 
second had no such pinions and would not risk 
himself. If we wait upon the Lord and com- 
mune with him daily we shall have strong wings 
that will not fear to dare the upper atmosphere. 
Christianity develops the spiritual vision so 



76 THE CHRISTIAN'S WINGS 



that like the eagle we may look in the face of the 
sun. 

A gentleman who was traveling through the 
coal-mining region in Pennsylvania noticed one 
Sunday a large field full of mules, and inquired 
of a boy what use was made of so many mules. 
The answer was : 4 * These are the mules that work 
all the week down in the mine ; but on Sunday 
they have to come up to the light or else in a 
little while they go blind. ' ' Sin blinds men and 
women, and there are many who go with blurred 
and marred eyesight, seeing only dimly, because 
they do not wait upon the Lord in regular wor- 
ship. Keep the eyes bent on worldly things long 
enough and steadily enough, and you will lose 
the power to see the visions of the sky. Fellow- 
ship with God gives us the wings to mount up 
above petty meanness and selfishness which would 
otherwise tempt and overcome us. 

The story is told of two merchants between 
whom there was great rivalry. One was con- 
verted. He went to his minister and said: "I am 
still jealous of that man, and I do not know how 
to overcome it." 

44 Well," said the wise preacher, 4 4 if a man 
comes into your store to buy goods, and you can- 
not supply him, just send him over to your neigh- 
bor." 

He said he wouldn't like to do that. 
4 4 Well," the minister said, 4 4 you do it, and you 
will kill your jealousy." 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WINGS 



The man was in earnest about his religion, and 
so finally said he would; and when a customer 
came into his store for goods which he did not 
have he would tell him to go across the street to 
his neighbor. Good deeds are as contagious as 
bad ones, and by and by the other merchant 
began to send his customers over to this man's 
store, and the breach was healed. Jesus Christ 
lifts his followers above meanness by creating for 
them wings to rise above it into the holier atmos- 
phere of the heavenly world. 

But there are many Christians who do not fly. 
They are old enough to fly ; they have been cared 
for and fed well enough; but they have not 
learned how to exercise their wings. Many of 
these people are having an unhappy time, because 
God is stirring up their nests as an old mother 
eagle does when she knows that her birds are 
large and strong enough to use their wings. The 
young eagles don't like it at first, and they cry 
and flutter and have palpitation of the heart; but 
when they are thrust out and trust the air they 
soon find what their wings are made for. So God 
does not give us faith and hope with which to sit 
on the nest, he does not mean that we shall 
always be fat weaklings having dainties carried 
to us by the pulpit ; he means that we shall soar 
abroad on errands of mercy and helpfulness. 

When the young eagle submits he is soon 
rejoicing in the happiness and glory of flight, and 
looks down with disdain upon the forest and the 



78 THE CHRISTIAN'S WINGS 



valleys and even the mountain tops, exulting in 
his new-found power. So when the timid Chris- 
tian submits to God, and ventures all upon his 
promises, he is soon rejoicing in the new sense of 
the beauty and victory of the Christian life. 



BREATHING ROOM FOR THE SOUL 

There is something very suggestive in the 
thanksgiving which David returns to God for 
bringing him into a large place. He had been 
beset by enemies and had been compelled, per- 
haps, to hide away in a cave and keep in narrow 
quarters. And so when his enemies were over- 
thrown and he was permitted to go out at will on 
the mountain or in the valley, to go freely in the 
open fields or in the town, to breathe the air of 
liberty with none to make him afraid, he would 
because of his past experience have a new sense 
of appreciation of the largeness of an unfettered, 
uncramped life. 

I saw a man recently who after living for many 
years in the heart of the city had moved out into 
the suburbs where he had a little ground about, 
with a chance for a garden and a few apple trees, 
and I asked him why he liked being out there so 
much better, and he replied: 4 'Oh, I have a 
chance to turn round and to breathe." 

The soul as well as the body needs breathing 
room, And to give it a chance to breathe well 
we must not crowd it too closely with worldly 
things that can never furnish an atmosphere for 
it. The supreme folly of the rich man described 
by Jesus, whom God named 4 4 Fool," was that he 

79 



8o BREATHING ROOM FOR THE SOUL 



undertook to feed his soul on the kind of goods 
which he could stow away in his barn. Many 
people are making the same mistake now. They 
crowd their lives so full of work and pleasure 
which appeal only to the temporary life that they 
smother the soul to death. 

There are some simple things which help to 
give breathing room to the soul. One of them is 
Bible-reading. The best soul atmosphere in the 
world is that which clings about the Word of 
God. We have a great deal to say now about con- 
densed foods. And we have exhibitions occasion- 
ally showing the marvelous power of liquid air. 
There is more condensed spiritual atmosphere, if 
I may so speak, in the Word of God than any- 
where else in the world. There are breezes 
stored up in the Psalms which a man may feel on 
the inner brow if he gives himself up to them for 
but a few moments. The water of life springs 
fresh and cool and inspiring from many a moun- 
tain range of Bible prophecy. The fragrance of 
wild flowers, the charm of water lilies, may be 
breathed from the sayings of Jesus, and from the 
incidents of loving self-sacrifice and transformed 
living which one finds in the stories of early 
Christianity in the New Testament. If one will 
give a certain amount of time every day to rever- 
ent reading of the Bible the soul will have a 
chance to breathe. 

Prayer is another source of spiritual atmos- 
phere. Quiet contemplation of the divine exist- 



BREATHING ROOM FOR THE SOUL 81 



ence, of God's nearness, of his loving care, the 
breathing out to him thanksgiving for past 
mercies and present joys, and the expression of 
the longings and desires of one's inner self, is 
soul-breathing. Especially is this true of secret 
prayer. To go alone into the closet and shut the 
door, separating one's self from troublesome 
thoughts of money and perplexing problems of 
expediency in daily living, and turning to God 
seeking his guidance, opening the heart and pour- 
ing out its confidence in loving trust to the Divine 
Friend, is for the soul's breathing like going out 
of some smoky city, where the air hangs low with 
fumes of oil and the dust of traffic, into the open 
country where the breath of the fields and the 
woods sweetens the clear atmosphere through 
which the eyes look up to the stars. 

Another way through which the soul finds 
breathing room is in doing good to others. Jesus 
kept his soul wholesome and sweet during his 
earthly pilgrimage not only by much prayer and 
communion with God but by going about doing 
good. Day by day he had the satisfaction of 
knowing that his deeds were blessing others, and 
so his soul breathed constantly this atmosphere of 
helpfulness and blessing. 

No man can have a wholesome, healthy, happy 
spiritual nature unless he gives the soul breath- 
ing room in unselfishly doing good deeds to his 
fellow-men. Many a man who has been selfish 
and fretful, unhappy, spiritually diseased, has had 



82 BREATHING ROOM FOR THE SOUL 



his life transformed into joyous spiritual health 
by being led into fellowship with Christ while 
bringing blessings to others. 

Dr. Arthur Brooke points out how well Dick- 
ens pictures this in his Christmas Carol. At the 
beginning of the story we have a portrait of 
Scrooge, a tight-fisted man, hard as a grindstone, 
sharp as a flint from which no steel had ever 
struck out generous fire, secret and self-con- 
tained, and solitary as an oyster. Nobody ever 
stopped him in the street to say with happy look, 
"How are you?" Even the beggar never im- 
plored him for alms; no child ever looked up in 
his face to ask him the time of day. He was 
rich, but dismal, morose and blue. He had never 
done good to any one. He had planned and 
toiled only for himself; but he was visited by 
three ghosts — the ghost of the past, the ghost of 
the present, and the ghost of the future — and they 
taught him a lesson. He became a good friend, 
a good employer, and a good man, and opened 
his heart and his purse to others. His soul began 
to breathe, and happiness and beauty blossomed 
in the life that had been desolate and barren. I 
commend to you these three storehouses of con- 
densed spiritual atmosphere, open to all — prayer, 
Bible-reading and unselfish service for your fellow- 
men. 



STREAMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Many beautiful and sweet suggestions are found 
in the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the influence 
which Christianity is to have upon the hearts and 
lives of men. It is to open the eyes of the blind, 
to unstop the ears of the deaf, to make the lame 
man leap for gladness and strength, and cause 
the tongue of the dumb to sing songs of grateful 
joy. It suggests that Christianity is a hopeful 
religion, encouraging the fearful heart to be 
strong. Its business is to strengthen feeble 
knees, and to lift up weak hands. The followers 
of Jesus Christ have planted rose gardens in many 
a desert, and every year thousands multiplied 
beyond number are added to the army of faithful 
ones who keep step to the heavenly music on that 
highway of holiness where the unclean do not 
pass, where no lion shall ever come, and upon 
which no ravenous beasts shall ever walk. 

But I maintain that in it all there is nothing 
quite so sweet or refreshing as the suggestion that 
Christ in us will cause living waters to spring up 
in the parched and desert places of the earth: 
4 4 In the wilderness shall waters break out, and 
streams in the desert. " I have been thinking 
particularly about this for the last few days, 
while I have been living up among the moun- 

83 



84 STREAMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 



tains, fishing in mountain lakes and wandering 
beside the rushing brooks that even in the dry 
and barren summer draw from reservoirs full 
enough to keep up the music in their hearts. I 
have been reclining on couches of moss; sniffing 
the air perfumed with balsam ; gathering ferns by 
the edge of the brooks in the deep canyons, and 
have been impressed again, as I have been a 
thousand times before, with the charm of running 
water. 

The stream of water is always alive, ever 
freshly fed, ever busy on its race from the moun- 
tain where it was born to the wide sea where its 
master purpose is to find fulfillment. I do not 
wonder that the Bible is full of brooks and 
streams of running water. It was by the brook 
Eshcol that the spies found the luscious grapes 
they brought back to Moses. It was out of a 
brook that David took the five smooth stones with 
which he went forth to fight Goliath. And hon- 
est-hearted men have been getting power out of 
brooks ever since. It was beside the brook Besor 
that David in later years uttered his famous 
declaration that those that tarried by the stuff 
should be as honorably rewarded as those that 
went forth to battle. Clear-eyed vision is born 
beside the running brooks. It was by the brook 
Cherith that God hid Elijah and gave orders to 
the ravens to feed him. When Moses would 
describe the goodness of God in bringing his 
people into the land of Canaan he can say nothing 



STREAMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 85 



better than this: "For the Lord thy God bringeth 
thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, 
of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys 
and hills.' ' When David would voice the deep 
hunger of his soul for the noblest spiritual com- 
munion, he cannot express it better than to say: 
" As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so 
panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul 
thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall 
I come and appear before God?" It was a brook 
that inspired the Psalmist in the sweetest of all 
his Psalms, where he thinks of the "green pas- 
tures," and the "still waters" by which the Good 
Shepherd should lead his sheep. It is a stream 
of running water, a river of life, that John de- 
scribes as the glory of the new city which was to 
be the final abode of glorified humanity. 

The hymn-writers of the church have often 
been inspired by the same vision. It tuned the 
lyre of Isaac Watts when he sang : 

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
Stand dressed in living green : 
So to the Jews old Canaan stood, 
While Jordan rolled between." 

And many other hymns are graced by the pleas- 
ing imagery of flowing water, as in the lines: 
"Streams of mercy, never ceasing;" "Soul- 
refreshing streams;" "By cool Siloam's shady 
rill;" "When peace like a river;" "Where 
streams of living water flow." All these show 
that the spiritual imagination is charmed and 



86 STREAMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE 



refreshed by the beautiful symbols of brooks and 
running water. 

What a testimony it is to God's conception of 
us, that he should choose such a figure to illus- 
trate the influence of a good man or a good 
woman in this world. The sincere Christian life 
is to be like a brook of running water — it is to be 
refreshing, getting its waters ever new and pure 
from the great reservoirs in the heart of God ; it 
is to be a beautiful life because adorned by the 
loveliness of the Christian spirit ; it is to be a joy- 
ous life, musical with appreciation and gratitude 
for the goodness of God; it is to be a useful life, 
ever earnestly pursuing its course, led onward by 
divine gravitation, trusting the God who leads it, 
turning every wayside mill-wheel it may, slaking 
the thirst of every fainting one it can, refreshing 
the soul of every one who comes within its reach, 
yet never staying with any of these to stagnate, 
but gathering added courage, pressing ever on- 
ward toward the greater sea of effort and achieve- 
ment to which God is guiding it. 

The brook is ever growing. It gathers springs 
from the wayside to swell its tide. And so your 
life and mine should grow and enlarge. We 
should be nobler, stronger, happier, lovelier men 
and women this year than we were last year. 
As the brook grows, so you and I must grow, and 
thus fulfill the purpose of the good God who gives 
us our life and rejoices in its beauty and service. 



THE LORD'S CANDLES 



In the eighteenth Psalm, David recites some of 
the great distresses and trials through which he 
has passed. He tells of the deep darkness of the 
storm that was only illuminated by God's light- 
ning; tells how God plucked him out of the dark- 
ness and not only lighted the sky with his 
lightnings but lighted a candle in David's own 
heart, a candle of faith and hope and assurance, 
that scattered the darkness about him. 

This suggests a very helpful idea. God means 
that each of shall give forth light in our own 
sphere. There is a sense in which we are to add 
to the light of Christianity and civilization in the 
world. When I was a boy and lived on a farm 
on the frontier, we used to go to church in an old 
log schoolhouse in the woods. Evening meetings 
in those days were always announced to begin 
4 4 at early candle-light." There were not even oil 
lamps in the old schoolhouse ; but there was an 
unwritten rule that each family attending the 
service should bring at least one candle. The 
first man who arrived lighted his candle and put 
it up in one of the wooden candlesticks or set it 
on the window sill fastened at the base in a little 
tallow drip — dripping the tallow hot and then 
steadying the candle in it before it cooled. And 

87 



88 THE LORD'S CANDLES 



so every man who came in lighted his candle, and 
as the congregation grew the light grew. If 
there was a small congregation there was a very 
dim light, and if there was a large congregation 
the place was illuminated by the light of many 
candles. Now the whole church is like that in so 
much as our added light is helping to illuminate 
the world. 

But there is a peculiar sense in which each one 
of us is a candle of the Lord and should shine 
forth in our influence and give our testimony for 
him. Here comes in our individuality. Every 
man who is a Christian, although his candle is 
lighted at Christ's fire and is an addition to the 
light of Christian influence in the world, will yet 
shine with a light and beauty peculiar to him- 
self. Though we are all the candles of the Lord 
the truth still remains that we are the Lord's 
individual candles and he does not mean that we 
shall all shine in exactly the same way. Each of 
us should seek to give our whole selves to God with 
such obedience that we shall be able to flame 
forth a perfect testimony for him. 

Some people are very much disturbed because 
there are so many different phases of religious 
belief among Christians, and think that Chris- 
tianity would be greatly enhanced in its power if 
we could bring everybody into one church and 
only have one kind, or type, of religious life. 
But I do not so read God's revelation of himself 
in the Bible, in nature, or in human affairs. And 



THE LORD'S CANDLES 89 

while all bitterness of partisanship or sectarianism 
should be put behind us, I think the types of 
religious light which we see in the diversity of 
the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, 
the Quaker and the Methodist, only adds to the 
beauty and glory of the illumination which each 
are helping to make in the world. 

What a high honor it is that God has given us 
the privilege of being individually a light for 
him in the midst of the world's darkness. Phil- 
lips Brooks, in a great sermon on that saying in 
Proverbs, "The spirit of man is the candle of the 
Lord," recalls the fact that in certain lands for 
certain holy ceremonies they prepare the candles 
with most anxious care. The very bees which 
distill the wax are sacred. They range in gar- 
dens planted with sweet flowers for their use 
alone. The wax is gathered by consecrated 
hands, the shaping of the candles is a holy task, 
performed in holy places to the sound of hymns 
and in the atmosphere of prayers. All this is 
done because the candles are to burn in the most 
lofty ceremonies on most sacred days. With 
what care must the man or the woman be made 
whose spirit is to be the candle of the Lord! It 
is the spirit of our lives which God is to kindle 
with himself. The body is valuable only for the 
protection and the education which the soul gains 
by it. And the power by which our spirits may 
become the Lord's candles is obedience. There- 
fore obedience to God must be the great privilege 



9 o THE LORD'S CANDLES 

and desire of our lives, and this not a hard and 
forced obedience, but a ready, loving, spontaneous 
obedience like that which a happy, trusting child 
gives to an adored father or mother. We must 
give such obedience to God as the candle gives 
to the flame. At the touch of the fire the candle 
melts and feeds the flame with its own self. So 
we must give ourselves to feed the flames of love 
and hope and faith which testify to the goodness 
of God, and which light up the dark world to know 
and rejoice in the light of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 




THE THINGS THAT LAST 

So many things come only to go, and are so 
quick in, the transition, that it is good for us fre- 
quently to take stock of the things that endure. 
For even in this transitory world there are some 
things that last. One of these is a kind deed. It 
may seem to pass in a moment, but really it 
never passes. It is like our memory of the 
flowers we plucked in childhood. The flowers 
died the same day, but the memory of their 
fragrance and of our delight in them and of the 
happiness they brought to the innocent heart of 
childhood is a part of our very being, and will be 
treasured forever on the wall of the soul. A kind 
deed is like that. Do one a real kindness and you 
may know, whatever w r aves of sorrow come after, 
that the effect of that kind deed will not be lost. 
Few of us, indeed none of us, are fully able to 
measure the value of kindness. 

I remember a time in my young ministry when 
I was in deep trial and fighting against odds, I 
was in a little church, an old worn-out building 
that would seat, possibly, two hundred people, on 
the banks of the Columbia River. President 
Hayes and his wife were making a tour of the 
West. They came to the town where I was 
preaching to stay over Sunday. I was young and 

91 



THE THINGS THAT LAST 



unknown as a preacher, and they came to the 
church not because of me but because they were 
members of the denomination and liked to wor- 
ship with their own church. And so, with only 
an hour's notice, there came into that dingy little 
church the President of the United States and his 
wife, Gen. O. O. Howard, and many other uni- 
formed officers. I preached the sermon — a plain, 
simple, Gospel sermon, such as my sermons 
always have been and are yet — the one which I 
had prepared for my own people, with all the 
earnestness of my heart. 

That afternoon a letter was brought to me from 
General Howard, saying that the President and 
Mrs. Hayes desired to see me after the evening 
service, at the General's residence, where the 
Presidential party were guests. And when my 
sermon was through in the evening a carriage 
waited to take me to them. I shall never forget 
the kind words which the President and his wife 
said to me about the sermon, and the service, and 
about the possibilities there were for me in my 
ministry. Nothing could exceed the kindness 
and tact with which they both carried out their 
evident purpose of not only giving me a delight- 
ful hour but of inspiring me with a new enthusiasm 
and a lofty ambition in my work. And a few 
weeks later I received from Washington a letter 
from Lucy Webb Hayes, enclosing photographs of 
the President and herself, and a further declara- 
tion of their pleasant memory of the Sunday 



THE THINGS THAT LAST 



morning service in the little church, and of their 
faith that they would hear of my success. Com- 
ing as it did, at a time of severe trial and dis- 
couragement, the kindness of that good woman 
was like a cordial to my spirit, and gave me 
courage to believe that there was grander and 
nobler work for me to do. 

Never fail to do a kindness when you have a 
chance. Long after you have gone home to 
heaven the people who have been comforted and 
whose lives have been sweetened will be passing 
on the inspiration you gave them in kindness to 
others. 

Another thing that lasts is service. Selfishness 
with all its pleasures and ambitions is short- 
lived, and no man looking back over his life 
selects the hours when he had his own way as the 
hours when he was particularly glad or joyous. 
No ; it is the times when we served some one that 
last in our own heart as a treasure. I have 
known many famous men and women who have 
made a great success of life, but when I have 
come close enough to them to get into their 
hearts a little, I have found that the memories 
which are sweetest and those which they most 
gladly recall are the memories of humble or 
unknown or unpopular periods in their lives, 
when they have carried the cross without 
even a glimpse of the crown of glory which 
was to come to them in the future. Service 
lasts because it brings us into fellowship with 



94 THE THINGS THAT LAST 



Christ, who is the great Servant of humanity. 
Christ chose to come to this world and be 
among us as a serving man, and you and I 
must not be above our Lord. If we want per- 
manent happiness we must cultivate the habit of 
service, so that in whatever position we maybe 
placed we shall be sure to make it better for all 
whom we can help. 

Another thing that lasts is a fellowship with 
Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Friend. Other 
friends may sometimes misunderstand us, and for 
a time the joy of their fellowship be lost; but 
Christ will never misunderstand. If our hearts 
are true to him he will always know it, even 
though appearances are against us. He will 
stand by us when we are poor just as truly as 
when we are rich. He will be just as cheerful 
and encouraging when we are sick as he will be 
good company when we are well and strong. We 
shall never outgrow him; we shall never get 
beyond him ; he will always stand up before us 
higher than ourselves, yet bending to us in infi- 
nite sympathy and love, and always leading us 
onward. Our friendship with Jesus will get 
sweeter as we get older. This is true of very 
few things. I have known very few people who 
enjoyed the physical happiness of living as much 
when they were old as when they were young. 
It is a rare thing for a man to care as much about 
books in old age as in his youth. I think few 
people enjoy money as much in later years as 



THE THINGS THAT LAST 



they do in the earlier years of life. To the old 
man or the aged woman many things in life have 
shown their emptiness and the hook has been 
found in many of the baits that lead men and 
women onward. But it is undoubtedly true that 
the friendship of Jesus Christ, the inspiration of 
his presence, the certainty of his divine sym- 
pathy, the comfort of his love, always get sweeter 
as we get older. No disease is able to destroy 
the appetite of the soul for spiritual delight. I 
have known a great many old Christians, and 
their increasing joy in Christ, their mellowing of 
heart, their growing tenderness of spirit, their 
keener realization of the personality of Jesus, and 
their hopeful expectation of soon being with him 
are among the most beautiful things I have ever 
known. Yes, the friendship of Jesus is one of the 
things that last. 



I 
i 



SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE 

No doubt the young man who was private sec- 
retary to Elisha considered himself as clear- 
headed and common-sense a person as there was 
in the country. As a rule he had to be eyes for 
Elisha. It was his duty to look after his master, 
and he had to see things not only for his own pro- 
tection but for the protection of the prophet. 
And so on that morning which has long since 
passed into history he got up a little earlier than 
Elisha and went out to look around and see how 
the weather was, and if there was any news stir- 
ring that would be of interest to the great man 
whom he served. And to his astonishment he 
found that in the night, while he and his master 
had slept, the Syrians had surrounded the city 
with a great army, and so far as he could see 
there was no possible escape for them. One 
would suppose that if he had been with Elisha 
very long he would have known better than to be 
so down-hearted about it ; would have understood 
that God never deserted his servants and would 
find some way of taking care of his prophet. But 
he was very much discouraged and hurried back, 
exclaiming as he went into the house and told 
the story of the besieging army, * 4 Alas, my mas- 
ter! How shall we do?" The young man must 

96 



SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE 97 



have been much surprised at the way Elisha took 
his news, for that good man did not seem to be in 
the least excited, but said assuringly to his servant, 
4 * Fear not ; for they that be with us are more than 
they that be with them." 

Now I suppose we have only a small outline or 
condensation of the conversation that took place 
here. There must have been a good deal said 
between these remarks and what happened later. 
I imagine the young man replied something like 
this: 4t O my dear master, you are surely deceived 
this time; for I myself saw the war horses and 
the chariots and the great companies of soldiers 
on every side. Before coming back to tell you I 
looked every way to see if there was a chance for 
us to escape, and they have not left a single place 
unguarded. The town of Dothan is entirely 
surrounded and we are hemmed in as though we 
were an army entrenched in a fortress. And, 
master, you are entirely mistaken if you think 
these cowardly village folks will be of any value 
to stand by us against those trained soldiers. 
They are scared out of their wits now. Every 
man I saw in the street was white and trembling 
with fear, and already they are beginning to talk 
about the advisability of taking you out to the 
Syrians and giving you up and begging that the 
town be let alone. Surely, master, you don't 
mean it when you say that there are more on our 
side than there are on theirs? You might just 
as well be undeceived at once, for there isn't 



98 SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE 



anybody on our side but just us two unarmed 
men." 

And then with a smile on his face Elisha says; 
44 Well, let us have our morning prayers." 

I imagine the secretary thought Elisha was 
extremely foolish to take the time to. pray when, 
according to his judgment, running would have 
been more in order; but they kneeled down 
together and Elisha prayed, and this was his 
prayer: 4 4 Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that 
he may see. ' ' 

He then took the young fellow by the arm and 
walked him out into the street and told him to 
look. 4 4 And the Lord opened the eyes of the 
young man; and he saw; and, behold, the moun- 
tain was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha." 

You see, the young man did see, but he didn't 
see things as they were. He saw the hosts of the 
enemy, but he did not descry the hosts of the 
Lord that were camped inside the enemy around 
the man of God. 

A great many people to-day are like that young 
fellow. They have wonderful eyesight for seeing 
the enemy. If there is a trouble or difficulty of 
any sort looming up in the distance, real or 
imaginary, you may depend on them to take it 
in. Troubles don't even have to be real for some 
people to see them. They can see ghosts and 
hobgoblins and all sorts of weird giants that are 
full of threatening, but they do not see the hosts 



SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE 99 



of God that are sent to take care of those who do 
right and trust in the Lord. 

I fear that many of us who call ourselves Chris- 
tians and who are striving to be worthy of that 
name have yet our mornings at Dothan when the 
enemy looks large and dangerous and the friends 
are unseen. But it should not be so, for God has 
filled his Book with precious promises which 
assure us that the danger is never so near as the 
defence, Take this; 4 'AH things work together 
for good to them that love God." What enemy 
is going to get in between that and the man or 
woman who goes quietly along loving the Lord? 
Or take this: "My God shall supply all your 
need, according to his riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus." What army of the devil can get inside 
that cordon of God's artillery? The fact is that 
the sincere Christian, however humble, may rest 
assured that whenever it looks as though evil 
would overcome him, though he is honestly and 
prayerfully doing the best he can, he is not see- 
ing things as they are. Just as true as it was 
with Elisha at Dothan is it true now that the 
Christian's friends are more than his enemies. 
God did not love Elisha any more than he loves 
you. And he has promised to take care of those 
who trust him and love him and honestly serve 
him. Let us not run from the foe. but resist him 
in God's name; and pray the Lord to give us 
better eyes, that we may behold the great spirit- 
ual armies which fight for us. 



HOW TO GET RID OF YOURSELF 



Christ proposes to give a man rest of soul by 
getting him out of himself and causing him to 
forget himself in some new service. Nothing is 
more wearing or a more fruitful source of unhap- 
piness in the long run than to be self-centered. 
If our thoughts and plans, our hopes and fears, 
our ideals and ambitions, all center in our own 
personal success, and in adding to our own per- 
sonal comfort and happiness, there must come 
many a day of infinite self-disgust and weariness 
when life does not seem to be worth living. 
Those people who are yawning themselves out of 
life because they have found everything they have 
tried to be a failure, are doing it because they 
have not learned that there is anything better to 
do than to take care of themselves. Poverty and 
riches have little to do with the case. You will 
find just as many well-to-do as you will find poor 
people for whom life has lost its spice and en- 
thusiasm. It is not a question of capital but of 
character. 

Now Christ's way to freshen life and fill it with 
hope and courage is to draw us out of our own 
yoke of sorrows and trials and get us into a new 
yoke, a new harness, and thus interest us in new 
tmrdenSo And he declares that in so doing the 



HOW TO GET RID OF YOURSELF 101 



yoke will seem, easier, the burden lighter, and we 
shall find rest unto our souls. 

Of course we know what Christ's yoke is. 
When he was here on earth in the flesh, all the 
troubles and needs of the blind and the deaf, of 
the hungry and the lame, of the lepers and the 
fever-stricken, all the sorrows of men, from a 
withered hand to a demoniac possession, inter- 
ested him, aroused his sympathy and became a 
part of his burden and yoke. Christ yoked 
himself to all the sorrows of mankind. Wher- 
ever a man was found who had trouble, whether 
a man anxious about his sick boy or a mother 
following her son to the tomb, or smaller matters 
— as where men had fished all night and had 
caught nothing — Christ entered into the case with 
sympathy and helpfulness and added it to his 
burden. And if we are to take up Christ's burden 
and wear his yoke, we must be yoked with the 
sorrows and troubles of men, and a part of our 
burden will be to try to lift the world up toward 
God and to help every sad heart toward the light. 

Yet, thank God, that is only half the case. 
Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light be- 
cause, while he is yoked with the sorrows and 
troubles of men and women on the one hand, he is 
for that very reason yoked on the other side with all 
the wisdom and power and blessedness of Almighty 
God. That is what makes the burden light and 
the yoke easy. Many a man who works in the 
foundry or the shop for long hours goes through 



io2 HOW TO GET RID OF YOURSELF 



the whole day with a light heart because of his 
yoke — fellowship with a loving wife and children 
at home. On the one hand he is yoked to long 
hours and hard work, but on the other his yoke 
takes hold of love and gentleness and thankful 
appreciation, and that makes his yoke easy and 
his burden light. So when for Christ's sake we 
share with our weaker brother and add his bur- 
den to our own shoulders, the doubled burden is 
made lighter because it brings us into happy fel- 
lowship with our divine Lord. 

As we come into fellowship with Jesus, and are 
yoked with him in burden-bearing and in labors 
of love, he opens to us the secrets of God's tender 
care over those who love and serve him. In this 
way we get rid of our doubts and fears concern- 
ing God's providential care over us. No one who 
knows God as Christ does, who looks up into the 
Heavenly Father's face with that perfect spirit of 
childhood, can doubt that God intends good for 
his children and is able to bring it about. 

Christ's perfect confidence in God comes out in 
the illustrations which he uses to show us the 
completeness of God's care. One day it is the 
lilies to which he points, asking his friends to 
mark how they grow and with what beauty they 
are clothed, and drawing the assuring lesson that 
the God who paints the lily with such resplendent 
colors will not forget the children made in his 
own image and likeness. Another day he points 
to the sparrow — a little cheap thing, two sold for 



HOW TO GET RID OP YOURSELF 103 



a farthing and five for two farthings, and yet not 
one of them forgotten by God. And if he cares 
for the little bird he surely will not forget his 
children. 

What a precious thing it is to have that kind of 
a faith in God! And you can only obtain it by 
getting rid of yourself in a working fellowship 
with Jesus Christ. If you will go into partnerhip 
with the Saviour and seek every day to bring 
blessings to somebody, feeling as he does that 
every man you can help is your neighbor and that 
everything that hurts your brother is your own 
personal enemy, thus putting your shoulders in 
close touch with Jesus underneath all the burdens 
of humanity, you will be brought into such a 
relation to God that the spiritual and the super- 
natural will appear real to you. 

In the greatest emergencies of Christ's burden 
bearing, in his temptation in the wilderness, and 
in the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane, 
angels came and comforted him ; and angels will 
come to you and soothe you when you need them 
if you are wearing Christ's yoke and bearing his 
burden. 



A CROWN FULL OF STARS 

The kings and queens of the world, as well as 
their subjects, have always vied with each other 
in having the finest crown. Many of these 
crowns are decked with precious stones of great 
beauty and brilliancy and of enormous value. 
The crown of Russia is at present said to be the 
richest in diamonds, There are three crowns in 
the Imperial treasury entirely composed of these 
precious stones. That of Ivan contains eight 
hundred and eighty-one diamonds. The crown 
of the famous Peter the Great contains eight 
hundred and forty-seven of the same brilliant 
jewels. But the dazzling crown of Catherine II 
surpasses them all in that it blazes forth with the 
light of two thousand five hundred and thirty-six 
marvelous diamonds. One of the most remark* 
able of these diamonds is the ' < Orlof¥, ,, now set in 
the top of the Imperial scepter, and on this 
account sometimes called "The Scepter Dia- 
mond. ' ' 

Our Heavenly Father, whose kindness is be- 
yond all our thought, compares to precious jewels 
all those who yield their hearts to him. The 
prophet Malachi says that the Lord keeps a 
book of remembrance, and in that book he writes 
down the names of those who fear him and think 

104 



A CROWN FULL OF STARS io S 

upon his name. "And they shall be mine, saith 
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up 
my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man 
spareth his own son that serveth him. " 

What a delightful suggestion is contained in 
that figure ! If we could imagine a diamond hav- 
ing reasoning powers we could easily believe 
that it would be filled with joy and rapture to be 
put in the crown of some great and good king, 
some splendid personage who ruled with wisdom 
over his people and was beloved by them. But 
the God of heaven and earth declares that the 
humblest man or woman or child who thinks 
upon his name and seeks him shall be cherished 
as one of his jewels. 

An immortal soul, then, is a brilliant jewel, a 
diadem in the crown of the Lord. If that be 
true, we can understand how the Lord appre- 
ciates the work of those who give themselves 
with self-sacrifice to snatch these priceless gems 
from the dirt and mire of sin and bring them to 
shine in his crown. There is some suggestion of 
what he thinks about it in the book of Daniel 
where it is said: "And they that be wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament; and 
they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars 
forever and ever. ' ' 

There is a chapter in the book of Revelation 
which begins with the verse: "And there ap- 
peared a great wonder in heaven: a woman 
clothed with the sun, and the moon under her 



io6 A CROWN FULL OP STARS 



feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. ' ■ 
I have heard of a family of twelve children 
whose mother was a sincere Christian. The 
father died while many of the children were yet 
small, but the mother worked hard and kept the 
family together, and one by one through her 
tears and prayers and her devoted Christian life 
she won all twelve of them as jewels for her 
Lord. And when she died they were all twelve 
in the church — happy, earnest Christians. I 
don't wonder that that family of children, now 
grown to be men and women, asked the minister 
to take that sun-clothed and star-crowned woman 
in Revelation as a text for his sermon. How she 
will rejoice in those twelve stars in her crown 
through eternal years in heaven. 

I presume a great many of us have already 
made up our mind that it is not to be our fate to 
be extraordinarily rich or famous in this world, 
and some of us have come to know by our obser- 
vation at least that there are a great many limita- 
tions to such happiness anyway. But it is 
possible for every one of us to add some stars for 
the Lord's crown and at the same time to get 
some stars for our own. 

Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, whom he 
himself had won to Christ, says: 44 For what is 
our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are 
not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and 
joy." Paul understood that his crown was made 



A CROWN FULL OF STARS 107 



constantly brighter by every soul which he won 
to the Lord. To win one soul from sin is a great 
thing to do. To make one life brighter, to in- 
sure the happiness of one heart, to cause the 
clouds that shut in one immortal soul to disperse, 
so that the sunshine of hope and courage shines 
through, is a great thing to do ; so great a thing 
that it is beyond our power to estimate it at its 
full value. The Scriptures declare that he who 
converts a sinner from the error of his ways 
saves a soul from death and hides a multitude of 
sins. We think it a great thing to save life, and 
men who do it are held in remembrance. Yet 
that is only the life of the body. But to save a 
soul from the darkness of despair and fill it with 
light in this world and all worlds is a glorious 
privilege. 

Many fail to become soul-winners because they 
wait for some conspicuous opportunity and do 
not appreciate the privilege of reaching some 
humble person that is near by. Great soul-win- 
ners always count every soul that can be influ- 
enced as a shining star to be won. It is said that 
after the conversion of Dwight L. Moody, and 
his acceptance as a member of the church, his 
Sunday-school teacher said about him that it was 
very unlikely the young fellow would ever be 
very useful, and when the young convert wanted 
to take part in prayer meeting it was suggested 
to him that he could best serve the Lord in 
silence. But young Moody was not to be dis- 



io8 A CROWN FULL OF STARS 



couraged, and set to work to do the first thing he 
could to honor Christ. He rented four pews in 
the church and kept them filled with men and 
boys. Then he asked if he might become a Sun- 
day-school teacher, and was told that he might if 
he would bring in his own scholars. Next Sun- 
day he marched in at the head of eighteen ragged 
boys whom he had collected during the week. 
That was the beginning of the work of the might- 
iest soul-winner this world has seen since the 
days of Paul. And yet there are many of us 
who could do that much. And the doing that 
would show us how to do more, and both our 
happiness and our usefulness would be multi- 
plied. Every one of us may go to heaven if we 
will with a crown of rejoicing that shall be full of 
stars. 



IS LIFE LONG OR SHORT 

A wonderful statement is made in the ninetieth 
Psalm, where Moses says of God: "A thousand 
years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is 
past, and as a watch in the night. ' ' Who has not 
at some time wondered how that could possibly 
be so — wondered why things could look so very 
different to God than they do to us? We usually 
explain it by saying that God, who has existed 
from all eternity, and who has a clear view of the 
immortal years, regards lightly these brief meas- 
ures of time which seem so long to us. But is 
there not another answer and a better one? Is it 
not rather that God is so busy with the great 
work of the universe, his attention is so con- 
stantly taken up with the interesting problems 
connected with carrying on this world and ten 
thousand other worlds like it, that time flies away 
on rapid wing? 

However this may be, it is certainly true with 
us that we may always make life seem long by 
making it empty, and we may always make it too 
short by filling it full of earnest and important 
work. The people who find time so long that 
they want to 4 4 kill" it are the people who have 
not learned to interest themselves in the vital life 
of the world. Instead of wanting to kill time, 

109 



no IS LIFE LONG OR SHORT 

people who are living earnestly often wish they 
could multiply the hours of each day or else 
multiply their own capacity for work. The 
reason life seems so much longer to children than 
it does to grown-up people is that the childish 
mind has not come to grapple with a great 
variety of interests, and a little mill often finds 
itself running empty. To those who do not fol- 
low Paul's example and when they become men 
and women put away childish things, life will 
still seem long after they are grown. 

All this is important because none of us will do 
our best work so long as we feel that there is 
abundance of time and no call for arousing our- 
selves to our best efforts. Human nature works 
best under the whip of necessity, and if we feel 
that we have more time than we need to do our 
work then there is not much likelihood that we 
shall get it done. The mind is quickened and 
made alert when the pressure of immediate neces- 
sity is put upon it. Nothing can be more fatal to 
successful evangelistic work, the doing our duty 
in winning people to Christ, than the feeling on 
our part that 4 4 there is time enough yet." 
Multitudes have failed of their best opportunities 
because of that. If every one of lis were really 
and earnestly awake to the fear that this present 
winter was the last opportunity we would ever 
have to win those who are not Christians to 
accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour, the result 
would be marvelous in our exertions ; and yet it 



IS LIFE LONG OR SHORT 



is no doubt true of some of us (and who can pick 
them out?) that this is the last chance. 

When Mr. Moody was a young boy, before he 
was a Christian, he was in a field one day with a 
man who was hoeing. The man was weeping, 
and he told Moody a strange story, which he 
never forgot. He said that when he left home 
his mother gave him this text: 4 4 Seek first the 
kingdom of God." But he paid no heed to it. 
He said that when he was settled in life, and his 
ambition to get money was gratified, it would be 
time enough to seek the kingdom of God. He 
went from one village to another and found noth- 
ing to do. When Sunday came he went into a 
village church, and what was his great surprise to 
hear the minister give out the text, * 4 Seek first 
the kingdom of God. ' ' The text went to the bot- 
tom of his heart. He went away from that 
town, and at the end of a week went into another 
church, and heard the minister give out the same 
text, 4 4 Seek first the kingdom of God. " He felt 
sure this time that it was the prayers of his 
mother, but he said calmly and deliberately: 
4 4 No; I will first get wealthy." He went on, and 
did not go into a church for a few months ; but 
the first place of worship he went into he heard a 
third minister preaching a sermon from the same 
text. He . tried to stifle his feeling, to get the 
sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he 
would keep away from church altogether, and for 
a few years did keep out of God's house. His 



IS LIFE LONG OR SHORT 



mother died, and the text kept coming up in his 
mind, and he said: "I will try to become a Chris- 
tian." The tears rolled down his cheek as he 
continued: "I could not; no sermon ever 
touched me; my heart is as hard as that stone" — 
pointing to one in the field. 

Moody could not understand what it was all 
about at the time, but after he went to Boston 
and was converted, the first thought that came to 
him was about this man. When he got back he 
asked him mother: 4 ' Is Mr. L — — living in such 
a place?" 

"Didn't I write to you about him?" she asked. 
* 4 They have taken him to an insane asylum, and 
to every one who goes there he points his finger 
upward and tells him to "Seek first the kingdom 
of God." 

The next time Moody went home the mother 
told him the man was in her house, and he went 
to see him. He found him in a rocking-chair 
with a vacant idiotic look upon his face. When 
he saw Moody he pointed to him and said, 
"Young man, seek first the kingdom of God." 
Reason was gone, but the text was there. 

Let us not make the fatal mistake of this man. 
The time is short; let us arouse ourselves to 
appreciate it, and throw our whole souls into the 
work of laying up treasures in heaven, where no 
moth can corrupt and where no thief can break 
through or steal. 



MULTIPLICATION OF BLESSINGS 
THROUGH SHARING 

God has made us for human fellowship, and we 
are starved and dwarfed in every way when we 
live selfish lives. Nobody is so poorly taken care 
of as the man who shuts his sympathies away 
from his fellows and devotes himself entirely to 
looking out for himself. It is just as sure as the 
law of gravitation that if we divide with others 
God's good gifts to us we multiply instead of 
diminishing our blessings. A wonderful illus- 
tration of this fact is found in the story of the 
widow woman who took Elijah to board. Elijah 
had been camping out for awhile by the brook 
Cherith, and the ravens had been bringing him 
food, two meals a day, and he had had good 
spring- water from the brook; but there was a 
drought in the land, and so God sent him to 
Zarephath, where he was to call at the house of a 
widow woman and find his place of entertain- 
ment. He found her out gathering up sticks to 
make a fire, and he asked her for a drink of 
water, and as she started to go and get it he 
stopped her and begged her to bring him a piece 
of bread with the water. The woman answered, 
"As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, 
but an handf ul of meal in a barrel, and a .little oil 



ii 4 BLESSINGS THROUGH SHARING 



in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two 
sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and 
my son, that we may eat it, and die." But 
Elijah assured the poor woman that if she would 
divide what she had with him the Lord who had 
sent him would see to it that her food did not 
give out until the famine was over. And the 
good woman believed him and divided her last 
meal, and though Elijah boarded there for a long 
time, they had plenty to eat, "and the barrel of 
meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, 
according to the word of the Lord, which he 
spake by Elijah." And not only did the woman 
have plenty to eat for herself and child; but 
afterwards, when her little boy sickened, Elijah 
saved him from death. 

This old story reveals a law of God which 
girdles the earth. When we hold any blessing 
that comes to us as given not for ourselves only 
but for our brethren as well, God multiplies it so 
that in blessing others we ourselves receive still 
greater blessings. Unselfishness is an invulner- 
able armor in any world which belongs to God 

In the Roman army there was a law that no 
one should approach the Emperor's tent by night 
under penalty of death. One night a soldier was 
found near the royal tent, bearing in his hand a 
petition which he wished to present. He was at 
once sentenced to die. But the Emperor, hear- 
ing voices without, asked what the trouble was, 
and learning that a soldier had invaded the for* 



BLESSINGS THROUGH SHARING 115 



bidden grounds to bring a petition to him, gave 
this command: 4 1 If the petition be for himself, 
let him die; but if it is for another, spare his 
life." It was found that it was a plea for two 
fellow soldiers who had fallen asleep at their 
posts. God is still more gracious, for when we 
come to him with petitions for others he will also 
hear our request for ourselves. It was when Job, 
forgetting his own great losses and troubles, 
besought God in behalf of his friends, that God 
turned his own captivity and brought joy again 
into his heart and life. 

There is no department of human service where 
one may see more remarkable illustrations of this 
great truth than in the efforts of Christians to 
share their experiences with those who do not 
know Christ and the joy of his salvation. No 
Christian ever yet sought out some poor hungry 
sinner and brought him to the heavenly feast 
who did not find the Bread of Life more delicious 
than before to his own taste. 

By sharing what we have with others we give a 
practical exhibition of our trust and confidence in 
God. We show that we are not afraid to trust 
God to give us more blessings. We often pray 
God to do for others what he has already given 
us the means to do in his name. One of the 
requisites of real prayer is our willingness to 
enter into fellowship with the Lord in bringing 
about the results which we desire. There is no 
real genuineness to any prayer for the help of a 



n6 BLESSINGS THROUGH SHARING 



needy neighbor when the one who prays it has 
abundant means to relieve his neighbor's distress 
and yet will not do it. So there is no real genu- 
ineness in your prayer for the conversion of your 
friend, or for the saving of some lost sinner, when 
you yourself are unwilling to speak to him or 
bring to him by your own testimony the knowl- 
edge of Christ's great love. 

I have heard of a man who prayed fervently 
every morning in his family prayers for the poor 
in the community ; but he was never known to 
give anything to the poor. One morning, at the 
conclusion of the family worship, when the usual 
prayer had been offered up for the poor and 
destitute, his little boy said: * 4 Father, I wish I 
had your corn-crib." "Why, my son?" replied 
the father. 4 4 Why, because then I would answer 
your prayer myself." That little story is sus- 
ceptible in application both to temporal and 
spiritual matters. Many of you are praying to 
God to save sinners ; you are asking him for the 
outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the church serv- 
ices, and on the efforts which the pastor and 
others are making for a revival; but at the same 
time you are personally acquainted with a dozen 
or it may be a score or more of people who are 
not Christians, and yet you let week after week 
go by and do not say a word to them about 
Jesus. 

Let each one of us co-operate with God and we 
shall see wonderful days of salvation. Share 



BLESSINGS THROUGH SHARING 117 



what spiritual blessings God has already given 
you with your unconverted neighbors, and you 
will find that 44 the barrel of meal shall not waste, 
neither shall the cruse of oil fail. " 



MAKING LIFE PEACEFUL BY MAK- 
ING IT IMPORTANT 

The message of the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah 
is that true peace is to be had only through har- 
mony with the great Heart of the universe. 
There is a bread which does not satisfy; there is 
a water which does not slake the thirst. The 
reason is that the human Heart is too great to 
satisfy its hunger on the things that perish ; the 
longing of the soul is too deep to slake its thirst 
at the streams of earth's pleasures. There is a 
music which charms for a time, but which never 
gives abiding peace. To catch the strains which 
satisfy, one must incline the ear and listen to 
heaven's anthems of immortality. 

This message is full of hope, for it tells of the 
God who has mercy and whose ways of pardoning 
are generous and abundant. His thoughts are 
higher than our thoughts. His ways are nobler 
than our ways. His purposes run deep through 
all the round of the year. Rain and snow, frost 
and heat, sunshine and shadow all work together 
to fulfill the deep purpose which he has to 
beautify and make fertile the earth as a garden in 
which his children are to grow. His purpose 
may seem to be thwarted by some great storm, 
by a season of bitter cold, or by days and nights 

118 



MAKING LIFE PEACEFUL 



of drought. But it is only seeming ; his purposes 
are not thwarted; in the end he gives 4 4 seed to 
the sower and bread to the eater." 

Now we are assured through all these figures 
and illustrations that if our purposes are only 
great enough, if we catch the spirit that abides 
underneath all transient things in God's world, 
then we shall have a deep, abiding peace that the 
transitory trials and sorrows of life will not be 
able to disturb. We may be shut about in our 
way like travelers who are snowbound for a day 
and a night, or even a week of days and nights ; 
but we shall not fret or worry if our purposes are 
in harmony with God's and our confidence rests 
sure in him. In that case we shall have no doubt 
that when the snow and ice of difficulty melt 
away we shall go out with joy and be led forth 
with peace; the mountains and the hills shall 
break forth before us into singing, and all the 
trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead 
of the thorns of to-day the fragrant balsam fir 
shall spring up about us to-morrow. Instead of 
the briers and the brambles of the present, in the 
long run the myrtle shall rejoice our eyes. 

You can always make life fretful and full of 
worry by making it narrow and shallow. If your 
purposes are small, then of course you must 
worry about details, and little things must either 
give you what pleasure you have or your annoy- 
ance. Make your purposes great, make your life 
important by devotion to high ends, and you can 



MAKING LIFE PEACEFUL 



afford to bear with self-composure the temporary 
annoyances of life. It is the shallow stream that 
chafes most at the rocks and boulders which 
impede its path. Some one sings: 

Deep the stream and silent — 

Scarce I hear its flow — 
What a noise its current 

Made a few days ago ! 

Round the stones it fretted 

On its shallow way — 
Babbling in vexation 

Over each delay. 

Came the heavy rainfall, 

Swelled the river's might. 
Now its stony troubles 

Are unheeded quite. 

So, when our complaining 

Tells of constant strife 
With some moveless hindrance 

In our path of life, 

What we need is only 

Fullness of our own — 
If the current deepen 

Never mind the stone ! 

Let the fuller nature 

Flow its mass above, 
Cover it with pity, 

Cover it with love. 



A LIFE ON FIRE 

In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in the 
ninth chapter, he sets forth with great clearness 
the difference between a prudent, careful Chris- 
tian life, where a man seeks only to come within 
the requirements of the letter of God's com- 
mands, and that of one who is so grateful to God 
for the innumerable mercies bestowed upon him 
that he is never satisfied with the return he can 
make but is ever aglow with desire to do more to 
show his love for Christ. 

Paul uses some very striking illustrations to 
bear testimony to his own fidelity and loyalty to 
Christ. He calls attention to the fact that he has 
as good a right to have a wife or to take a sister 
about with him on his travels as any of the other 
of the apostles, but he gladly denies himself the 
comforts and privileges which other men have 
that he may carry the Gospel the farther and be 
the more effective as an evangelist. He calls 
attention to the fact that he would have a perfect 
right to expect a salary for the work which he 
performs. He asserts that the man who plants a 
vineyard has a right to eat the fruit of it, and 
that the man who herds the flock has a right to 
live on the milk. He is sure that the God who 
would not let them muzzle the ox that was used 

121 



122 



A LIFE ON FIRE 



to tread the corn would guarantee to him the 
right to a salary as a minister ; but so great is his 
devotion to the cause of Christ that, believing as 
he does that in establishing the infant church he 
must make the people to whom he goes feel that 
he has no interest in them but their salvation, he 
denies himself the comfort of being supported by 
them. So earnest is he about it that he exclaims : 
4 4 It were better for me to die, than that any man 
should make my glorying void. M And then for 
fear somebody would think that it was simply a 
pioud boast of his own self-sacrifice and goodness 
he continues: 4 4 For though I preach the gospel, I 
have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid 
upon me ; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the 
gospel!" And therefore, feeling that he is so 
greatly indebted to Christ that everything he can 
do is a small return for the love of Jesus to him, 
he says: 4 4 For though I be free from all men, yet 
have I made myself servant unto all, that I might 
gain the more. " 

Somehow I feel that there are many of us who 
need to get more of that spirit. I think we are 
altogether too independent and proud in our atti- 
tude toward our church work. If it goes just to 
suit us we are all right ; but when we think we 
are not shown proper consideration, or matters 
are conducted in a way that does not meet with 
our approval, we are often too ready to feel that 
we are at liberty to throw up our church duties 
and do as we please. But has a father the right 



A LIFE ON FIRE 



123 



to abandon his duties as a father because he 
sometimes has to give up his plans and wishes in 
the conduct of household affairs? Has a mother 
a right to repudiate her duties of motherhood, and 
fail to fulfill her obligations to her children, 
because they have sometimes to be performed 
under perplexing conditions? Has a citizen the 
right to consider himself released from all obliga- 
tions as a citizen to the government which pro- 
tects his person and property because, forsooth, 
the party which he opposed was elected to power? 
If not, then the Christian certainly is not at liberty 
to consider himself free from his obligations to 
Christ and humanity because the conditions under 
which he is called upon to perform his Christian 
duties are for the time being trying to his patience 
and, it may be, humiliating to his self-esteem. 

The cure for all this is to have Paul's spirit. 
Paul was able easily to endure things which 
would otherwise have been impossible to him 
because his soul was aflame with devotion to and 
love for Christ. He was willing to deny himself 
anything in the world that stood in the way of his 
being a successful evangelist of the Lord Jesus. 
How strongly this comes out in his declaration 
that, 4 'To the weak became I as weak, that I 
might gain the weak: I am made all things to all 
men, that I might by all means save some." 
4 'And this," he says to these Corinthians, "I do 
for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker 
thereof with you." 



124 



A LIFE ON FIRE 



Brethren, is not this the spirit we need — a 
spirit that will put us into sympathy and fellow- 
ship with those who have severe limitations, who 
are held back by many restraints, and who must 
fail utterly unless their brothers and sisters in 
the church will have charity for them and be 
patient with them? We cannot have the patience 
we ought to have unless our love for Christ is so 
great, and our love for those who are trying to 
be Christians is so earnest and true, that we will 
overlook a great many things that we would 
otherwise severely criticise. What a difference 
there is between a life that is negative— doing 
only what one thinks he cannot get along without 
and still keep up his fair name in the church— and 
a life that is thrown with a full heart into loving 
service of God and man! Paul expresses it in 
another place perhaps better than any one else 
ever has when he says, 4 'The love of Christ con- 
straineth me." 

If we are not already on fire, let us pray God to 
kindle our souls to a white heat. Charles Wesley 
had the right idea when he sang : 

Jesus, thine all-victorious love 

Shed in my heart abroad ; 
Then shall my feet no longer rove, 

Rooted and fixed in God. 

O that in me the sacred fire 

Might now begin to glow, 
Burn up the dross of base desire 

And make the mountains flow ! 



THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SYM- 
PATHY AND PITY 

These two words are often confused in the 
public thought. People many times have pity 
aroused at the sight of suffering when they have 
no sympathy whatever with the sufferer. Sym- 
pathy has for its foundation stone genuine respect 
for a person simply because of his humanity; 
while pity need have no respect at all, but is 
stirred in an emotional way at the sight of any 
unusual discomfort or sorrow. Sympathy gives 
us the power to put ourselves in our brother's 
place. We think how we would feel if we were 
in the same position. We look through our own 
eyes from his standpoint. One may do a great 
many kind deeds through pity; but pity is only 
copper, where sympathy, issuing in brotherhood 
and fellowship, is gold. 

Christ often showed pity toward men, but his 
pity issued from his sympathy. If a man was 
hungry he fed him, but as a brother in need, 
never as a hungry animal. If a man was sick of 
palsy, or was a leper, or was blind, he healed 
him ; but not to get rid of his appeals or because 
his misery annoyed him. He ever saw the man 
back of the misfortune, and healed his body only 
as an approach toward the restoration of his man- 

125 



i26 SYMPATHY AND PITY 



hood. He asked a drink of water of the woman 
of Samaria, but his real drink that evening was 
to turn the woman to righteousness. 

Paul shows us very clearly his idea of the dis- 
tinction between pity and sympathy in the thir- 
teenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, 
when he says that a man might, through pity, 
bestow all his goods to feed the poor and yet get 
no credit whatever for it in heaven because it 
lacked the loving sympathy which alone gives 
true value to deeds of charity. 

Never, perhaps, does goodness count for so 
much as when it expresses itself in sympathy. A 
human heart is always hungry for sympathy. If 
it cannot have the highest quality, it will feed on 
the lowest. 

A rich man was walking out with his little boy 
one evening, and in passing the cottage of a Ger- 
man laborer the boy's attention was attracted to a 
very commonplace little dog at the gate, and he 
wanted his father to buy it. Just then the owner 
of the dog came home from work, and was met 
by the dog with every demonstration of joy. 
The rich man said to the owner : 4 4 My little boy 
has taken a fancy to your dog, and I will buy 
him. What do you want for him?" 

44 I can't sell dat dog," said the German. 

4 4 Look here," said the man of wealth, 4 4 that is 
a poor dog, just a common cur; but as my boy 
wants him, I will give you ten dollars for him." 

44 Yaas," said the German, 44 1 knows he is a 



SYMPATHY AND PITY 127 



very poor dog, and he ain't wort* almost nottin', 
but dere is von leetle ding mit dat dog vat I 
can't sell — I can't sell de vag of his tail ven I 
comes home at night." 

Laugh as you will, there is deep pathos in that 
old German's idea. To know that somebody 
looks after us in longing when we go away; to 
know that some heart is more joyous, though it 
be only a dog's, when we come home; to know 
that there is sympathy somewhere for us, is one 
of the great necessities of life. 

An intimate friend of John Ruskin says he was 
once at dinner with that great man when, as they 
were enjoying a rhubarb tart, the visitor hap- 
pened to say that it was the first he had tasted 
that season, and remarked how delicious it was. 
Ringing for one of his servants, Ruskin said: 
"Please tell Jackson I want him." When he 
came into the room his master said : 44 Jackson, I am 
very pleased to tell you that your first pulling of 
rhubarb is quite a success; and my friend here, who 
has had some pie made of it, says it is delicious. ' ' 

After the dinner was over a servant came in 
bringing a number of lighted candles. The win- 
dows being shaded by the overhanging trees 
above, the room was almost dark, even before the 
sun had gone down. After placing the candles, 
as she was leaving the room she said: "Please, 
sir, there is a beautiful sunset sky just now over 
the Old Man." 

The professor rose from his chair and said : 



128 SYMPATHY AND PITY 



4 4 Thank you, Kate, for telling us." He then left 
the room, but soon returned. 44 Yes," he said, 
4 4 it is worth seeing. " And he led the way to an 
upper window. 

It was a glorious sight, the sun sinking behind 
the Coniston Old Man Mountain and the mist and 
ripples on the lake tinged with a crimson flush. 
The two men sat silently in the window recess till 
the sun went down behind the mountain. Rus- 
kin was no doubt thinking of the sunset, but his 
visitor was thinking most of the charming rela- 
tion and sympathy manifested between master 
and servants. 

The greatness of a man's nature comes out 
more beautifully perhaps in sympathy than any- 
where else. A new and beautiful story has 
recently been published concerning Abraham 
Lincoln. It was while he was a member of Con- 
gress and was home in Springfield, 111., during 
the Congressional recess. He was going down 
the street one morning when he saw a little girl 
standing at the gate with her hat and gloves on 
as if ready for a journey, but sobbing as if her 
heart would break. 

44 Why, what's the matter ?" inquired the great 
tall Congressman. 

And then she poured out her little broken heart 
to him ; how she had arranged to take her first 
trip on the cars that day, and the expressman had 
failed to come for her trunk, and she was going 
to miss the train. 



SYMPATHY AND PITY 



129 



"How big is the trunk? There's still time, if 
it isn't too big." And he pushed through the 
gate and up to the door. 

She took him up to her room where her little, 
old-fashioned trunk stood, locked and tied. 

"Oho!" he cried. 4 'Wipe your eyes and come 
on quick. " 

And before she knew what he was going to do 
he had shouldered the trunk, was downstairs and 
striding out of the yard. Down the street he 
went, as fast as his long legs could carry him, the 
little girl trotting behind drying her tears as she 
went. They reached the station on time, and 
Abraham Lincoln sent his little friend away 
happy. 

I doubt if any other scene in the splendid life 
of that noble man reveals more beautifully the 
simplicity and grandeur of his heart. It is the 
same grade and quality of action which after- 
ward, when applied to national affairs, made men 
love him all over the world. 

If we open our hearts for the coming of Jesus 
Christ into its inner sanctuary, and permit him to 
sit at the table and dictate our conduct, all our 
lives will bloom out in a sympathy which will 
make the most common career sweet and beauti- 
ful with the Christ spirit. 



THE HARP-STRINGS OF THE SOUL 



In the 104th Psalm we have pictured with much 
care and detail the beauties and glories of nature 
and the goodness of God in dealing with his 
creatures. It is wonderful how much is packed 
into that Psalm! It talks of the God who covers 
himself with light, who stretches out the heavens 
like a curtain ; who makes a chariot out of the 
clouds and uses the winds for wings. It is a 
wonderfully picturesque Psalm. The springs 
which burst out of the hillsides and run down 
through the valleys, the birds that build their 
nests along these little water courses, the droves 
of cattle that find pasture on the hills, the vine- 
yards and olive groves and fields, the cedars of 
Lebanon, the fir trees where the storks build their 
nests, wild goats and conies; the changing 
seasons of the year, the day, and the night, in 
whose darkness the young lions go out seeking 
their prey, are all enumerated. Reflecting on all 
these things the Psalmist is impressed anew with 
the fact that God cares for and feeds each one of 
them, and that none of them could live without 
God's ceaseless protection; and as his heart over- 
flows at the majesty and goodness and love of 
God he bursts forth into a most delightful melody 
of thanksgiving. 

I think it would be well for us to notice the 
130 



THE HARP-STRINGS OF THE SOUL 131 



strings on this harp, because every reason that 
then existed for its grateful melody exists to-day. 
The first of these is meditation: "My meditation 
of him shall be sweet." How much we lose 
when we go rushing along through the world 
without so mastering ourselves as to take time to 
meditate upon God and his dealings with us. The 
reason so many lives are barren and spiritually 
uninteresting is because they have no times of 
sweet meditation on heavenly things. Do not 
make the mistake of supposing that you must 
always have ideal circumstances surrounding you 
in order to have meditations that are perfumed 
with the atmosphere of heaven. A great many 
of the sweetest Psalms bear evidences of having 
been written in times of great trial and hardship. 
Many of those written by David were composed 
when he was a wanderer and had to hide himself 
away in a cave or in the mountains; but under 
such circumstances he was able to meditate upon 
God and his goodness. Though he was driven 
into the hills, he could not thus be driven away 
from God. When he saw a stork building her 
nest in a fir tree, or a wild goat standing aloft on 
some jutting crag, or heard at night the roar of 
some young lion seeking his prey, David said to 
himself as he meditated, "The God who cares for 
these things and does not forget them will surely 
not forget me." And as he meditated the bitter- 
ness went out of his heart, love and hope came 
in, and his whole life was sweetened. 



i 3 2 THE HARP-STRINGS OF THE SOUL 



Touching this string of meditation jars another 
string, and that is gratitude: "I will sing praises 
to my God." I am sure we shall always be 
grateful after any genuine meditation on God's 
goodness. It is when we act or say things in 
haste that we are not grateful. It is impossible 
to count up God's mercies, and to take account 
of all the things that are still left which through 
God's kindness may yet minister to our happiness 
even on the darkest and most trying day, without 
there rising up in our souls an anthem of praise 
to God. When we address God nothing, unless 
it be confession of sin, so befits our lips as grati- 
tude. We ought not always be asking and never 
thanking the Lord. The thankful soul is the 
happy soul. Show me a man who is ungrateful, 
who is always receiving and never giving back in 
words of gratitude, and I win show you one who 
in the very nature of things can never know real 
genuine happiness. A thankful spirit is as great 
a blessing to the giver as it is to the one who 
receives the gratitude. 

If these two strings of your harp are touched I 
am sure they will arouse a third: 44 1 will sing 
unto the Lord." How natural it is for a heart 
that is grateful, and is communing with the Lord 
in meditation, to burst forth into happy song. 
Christianity is the greatest singing religion in the 
world. This is because there is more hope and 
good cheer, more promises of good things to 
come, more present gladness in the heart of the 



THE HARP-STRINGS OF THE SOUL 133 



sincere Christian than in the disciple of any other 
religion the world has ever seen. Christ is the 
great hope bringer. When the angels came to 
sing at his birth they said to the shepherds that 
they brought glad tidings, and wherever Christ is 
preached men are made glad. It is not only our 
privilege but our duty to live glad lives, and song 
is the most natural expression of gladness. I 
think we ought to sing more than we do. We 
ought to sing more in our homes. Ours is a sing- 
ing religion, and we ought to live up to it. 
Christian song has great power to banish the 
blues and brighten our outlook on the future. 

If we strike all these notes we shall get courage 
to go on our way rejoicing. The Psalmist felt so 
uplifted as he meditated and praised and sang 
that he determined to keep on in that good way 
as long as he lived. 

If we give ourselves up to the fascination of 
soul-music that is aroused by meditation upon 
God and communion with him, our hearts will be 
made so glad and we shall be so charmed with our 
heavenly conversation with Christ that we shall 
be saved from many of the haunting fears of life. 

Mrs. Duncan Stewart, a favorite in the highest 
circles of Europe forty years ago, was wonder- 
fully gifted in the art of conversation. She was 
an intimate friend in the home of Disraeli. 
Through the affection of the royal family of 
Hanover for her eldest daughter, the king and 
the queen showed her constant marks of consider- 



134 THE HARP-STRINGS OF THE SOUL 



ation and favor. The king was blind, and the 
brilliant conversation of Mrs. Stewart so de- 
lighted him that she would save tip for his bene- 
fit every interesting story she heard. One day 
she was telling him a story as they were driving 
together. The horses suddenly started, and the 
carriage seemed about to be upset. 

"Why do you not go on with your story?" 
asked the king. 

"Because, sir, the carriage is just going to 
upset. ' 9 

"That is the coachman's affair," said the king. 
"Do go on with your story." 

I think there is a good lesson for us in that 
story. If we will give ourselves up often to 
sweet meditations on God's goodness, and enter 
heartily into the purpose of the Lord Jesus in 
this world, we shall be so charmed by our fellow- 
ship with him that we shall not be alarmed at 
everything that threatens to upset our plans, but 
will realize that after we have done our best the 
security of our future is the business of him 
whose promise is that "all things work together 
for good to them that love God. ' ' 



IN WHAT RESPECT CAN THE CHRIS- 
TIAN OF TO-DAY IMITATE JESUS 

Though there has been a great deal of discus- 
sion recently upon this question, the inquiry is 
by no means novel. Paul wrote on it a good 
many years before Sheldon. In the opening of 
the eleventh chapter of his first letter to the 
Corinthian Christians, Paul made a direct appeal 
to them to follow him in the same way that he 
followed Jesus. Now that gives us a little clue, 
I think, to Paul's idea of our inquiry. As we 
examine the life of Paul we can see what he 
thought was the Master's desire as to the manner 
in which he should imitate him. And we can 
often learn a good deal about things by finding 
w r hat they are not like. If we pursue that course 
in this case we shall take note of the fact that 
Paul did not pursue Christ in the outward man- 
ner of his life. Christ remained in that little land 
of Palestine all his life long. He went about 
doing good, and picked up here and there a 
friend, but he did not undertake any wide field of 
evangelism and made no attempt to carry his mes- 
sage beyond the country in which he was born. 
Paul, however, was soon led out beyond all this 
narrow sphere into the wider world. His vision 
of the man of Macedonia he took as a call to the 

i35 



i 3 6 THE IMITATION OF JESUS 



great Gentile world, and he went from city to city 
arguing with the people, bearing witness to 
Christ, and turning the world upside down by his 
magnetic and powerful oratory. Everywhere he 
went he organized churches, and he kept track of 
them afterward, wrote them letters and visited 
them as he had opportunity. 

Now I think this suggests to us a certain 
negative line of thought in regard to our own 
conduct. We cannot imitate Jesus in many 
things connected with our outward life. For 
instance, we cannot all be unmarried men. And 
a man who has a wife and children is, in the very 
nature of the case, widely separated from Jesus 
in the manner of his personal life. Again, Christ 
was never a public official, and a man who has 
official relation as a general in an army, as the 
governor of a State, as a judge in court, or as a 
policeman of a city, occupies an outward relation 
to his fellow men entirely different from anything 
which is illustrated to us in the life of Jesus on 
earth. Christ lived in a very simple age. There 
are many things in this complex society in which 
we are living that so far as outward method and 
manner are concerned are so unlike the humble 
life of Palestine nineteen hundred years ago that 
the biography of Jesus points no index finger to 
any path through the perplexing artificial growths 
that surround us in our daily life. 

But now let us turn to the other side, and see 
in what respect Paul followed Jesus. In the first 



THE IMITATION OP JESUS 



place, he imitated Christ in the reverence and 
prayerfulness of his life. From the day Jesus 
spoke to him on the way to Damascus and Paul 
cried out, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" 
Paul lived a reverent, prayerful life. In that he 
imitated Jesus. His constant recourse in every 
time of trouble, in every perplexity of his 
experience, was to prayer. He felt all the 
while that he was in delicate, sensitive touch 
with God. He felt that he was under the 
direction of the Holy Spirit. How much many 
of us are losing because our prayers are formali- 
ties. They are not hypocritical, we are honest 
about them, but we somehow feel that God acts 
on great formal lines, and we do not think of 
breathing out our hearts to him as we would to a 
dear friend who is just at our elbow, or whom we 
could call up on the telephone and counsel with 
without a moment's notice. That is where the 
average Christian loses beyond all computation. 
One of the most effective Christian men I have 
ever known was Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, and 
he kept in touch with God in such a way that he 
walked hourly with the feeling that the Lord 
directed and guided him, not in a general way, 
but as one friend might lead another, taking him 
by the hand. God wonderfully used him for the 
salvation of souls and the comfort of his people. 
His face glowed with the presence of the Holy 
Spirit. Once when he called at the house of a 
parishioner, a Catholic servant girl, who was new 



i 3 S THE IMITATION OF JESUS 



to the house, on going in to her mistress to an- 
nounce him, said that she had forgotten his 
name, she had been so excited; for, said she, 
4 4 the man has the face of an angel.' ' Surely we 
may imitate Jesus and Paul by living in this 
spirit of pray erf uln ess. 

Paul followed Christ in another respect in that 
his duty was ever the supreme thing in his life. 
When the disciples came back from Samaria with 
food, and found Jesus at the well where they had 
left him, and could not persuade him to eat, he, 
having won a soul to God while they were gone, 
said: <4 I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 
. . . My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to finish his work. ' ' The supreme purpose 
in Christ's life was to please God and to do his 
work. That was the great joy and gladness of 
living. Paul, too, was like that. Everything 
else was only incidental. Paul did not grumble 
at being shipwrecked ; he did not mind being let 
down over the wall in a basket ; it did not count 
though he fought with wild beasts; there was no 
complaint when he endured chains and imprison- 
ment; he worked making tents and supported 
himself while pouring out his life to bring bless- 
ings to others, and did all, as Christ did, for the 
joy that was set before him. It was his meat and 
drink to do the will of God and complete the 
work which he had given him to do. We may 
follow Christ in that respect. We may imitate 
Jesus by setting our hearts on doing our duty to 



THE IMITATION OF JESUS 139 



the full ; on giving our whole soul and spirit to 
the work which God has given us to do. 

Then I think it all narrows down to this : We 
cannot walk in Christ's steps in many of the paths 
he trod, but we can live in his spirit in all the 
ways of our human life. In our attitude toward 
God and toward our fellow men we can live in 
the spirit of Christ. His spirit was reverence 
and love toward God and sympathy and love 
toward his fellow men. He kept his heart ever 
open toward God, so that he never doubted the 
presence of heaven in his life ; and he kept his 
heart ever open towards his fellow men, so that 
he uttered no word and did no deed in relation to 
them that was not inspired by love. And by 
God's help we may imitate him in this, and thus 
live the Christ-life before the world. 

Let us not be discouraged if our performance 
has come so far short of our hopes, but let us 
rather act on the determination of Paul, and for- 
getting those things which are behind, press for- 
ward toward that which is before, keeping our 
eyes upon the goal, which is a character and a 
personality that after awhile, if we are faithful, 
shall be in the likeness of Jesus Christ. 



THE VALUE OF CASTLES IN THE 
AIR 



All the best work of the world has been done 
by men who were ever building castles in the air, 
dreaming souls who believed more than they 
could see. Men whose faith does not go beyond 
their sight are always limited and circumscribed 
in the possibilities of their achievement. A man 
who dreams of bowing suns and moons and stars 
has no limit to his horizon. Joseph the dreamer 
is ever a type of the man to whom all things are 
possible. For, after all, the greatest things are 
out of sight. Paul says that it is the seen and 
temporal which is only transient, it is the unseen 
which is eternal. He is a poor man indeed, how- 
ever many times a millionaire the world may 
count him, who has no wealth save that which an 
earthly tax-gatherer can tabulate. Just now the 
seen and the temporal attract much attention. 
They are in sight and impress themselves upon 
the senses, and there are many careless souls who 
are ready to exclaim in the language of the old 
proverb, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the 
bush." But it depends on the bird, and on what 
you want the bird to do. If you want to eat the 
bird and thus lose it, or if you enjoy keeping it in 
your hand, just looking at it and gloating over 
your possession, that is one thing; but if you want 

140 



VALUE OF CASTLES IN THE AIR 141 



a bird to sing and warble forth its glorious music, 
if you want it to soar in the air with the sunshine 
on its wings, carrying a little of heaven with it 
wherever it goes, then a bird in the bush is worth 
a great many in the hand. 

Joseph went down into Egypt a poor slave, to 
be auctioned off like any other merchandise 
brought with the caravan. Outwardly he was 
poor enough, but really he was richer than any 
merchant in that company. His wealth was in- 
visible, unseen, but none the less real, and none 
the less available when the time came. On the 
day when Joseph stood before Pharaoh, and 
through the insight which God gave him inter- 
preted Pharaoh's dream and was made prime 
minister of Egypt purely because of the unseen 
spiritual wealth which he possessed, there was 
not a purse-proud merchant in all Egypt that 
would not have been glad to exchange properties 
with him. 

High ideals and lofty ambitions which crystal- 
lize our visions into purpose and determination 
are the most valuable resources any man or 
woman can have. Who of us has not seen young 
men and women with good health, strong bodies, 
clear minds, excellent opportunities, and yet 
infinitely poor because they were bankrupt at the 
point where it counts most? They have no 
castles in the air to lead them over the path of 
exertion and self-denial to great victories. A boy 
may be as poor and ignorant as was Abraham 



142 VALUE OF CASTLES IN THE AIR 



Lincoln on those nights when he lay flat on his 
stomach mastering books by the light of a pine 
torch; but he is rich if, like Lincoln, he has 
castles in the air supported by untiring exertion 
and determined will. 4 4 The man of Macedonia," 
who led Paul and his companions on their great 
mission among the Gentiles, was a castle in the 
air which seemed so splendid that Paul risked his 
life and gladly endured all sorts of persecution 
that he might attain to it. 

Christ is ever seeking to arouse in us the spirit 
of the dreamer that will not be satisfied with the 
commonplace and vulgar achievements of life. 
He holds up before us a vision of the perfect man. 
He declares that we are to be like him, and we 
must not be satisfied with anything else ; we must 
not think of working as slaves work, without fellow- 
ship, but must rise to such a high plane that we 
shall do nothing without the consciousness that 
our yoke in which we work has its other bow 
about the neck of Jesus and that we carry no 
burden that is a stranger to the shoulders of our 
God. 

Multitudes of good people rob themselves of the 
sweetest and most delicious joys of life in that 
they do not give themselves over to the full en- 
joyment of their high privilege as the children of 
God. How much Thomas lost through that 
glum blue, forbidding way he had of doubting 
all the joy and happiness which had come to the 
other disciples! But even Thomas believed 



VALUE OF CASTLES IN THE AIR 143 



finally, and cried aloud with reverent gratitude, 
"My Lord and my God!" Surely we, who have 
so much evidence of the divine kindness in the 
world, ought to yield ourselves with glad sur- 
render to feast upon the promises of God's Word 
without allowing one cloud to rest on the sky of 
our confidence. It is a sad thing for one who 
names the name of Jesus to go through this world 
with the head down and the heart walled in, not 
realizing that it is a world full of the rustle of 
angels' wings and bright with the messengers 
which ascend the stairway from earth to heaven. 
The sky as well as the ground on which we walk 
belongs to us; let us go with our heads up and 
our hearts aglow. Let us build air-castles out of 
God's promises; they are both beautiful and safe 
places in which to dwell. 

I lately read of a man in the South who dug a 
cavern several feet deep in his front yard, and 
every morning he went there to pursue his literary 
work. But you and I know people who live in 
caverns all the while — underground dungeons 
into which the light never comes. They are not 
pleasant places in which to live, and, thank God, 
the genuine Christian never lives there. If we 
will go out into the forest and the quarry of God's 
Word, we shall find strong timbers and illuminated 
stones with which to build a castle in the air 
against which the gates of hell can never prevail 
and which the darkest night cannot shroud in 
gloom. 



i 4 4 VALUE OF CASTLES IN THE AIR 



Longfellow , singing of the little boy with 
** brown and tender eyes" who was building his 
castle out of the blocks on the floor and listening 
to fairy legends as he rode his father's knee, looks 
to the future, dreaming for him, and says: 

"There will be other towers for thee to build; 

There will be other steeds for thee to ride ; 
There will be other legends, and all filled 

With greater marvels and more glorified. 
Build on and make thy castles high and fair, 

Rising and reaching upward to the skies ; 
Listen to voices in the upper air, 

Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries." 



THE RISEN LIFE 

The best evidence of the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ is the fact that he has now the power to 
pull men out of the slough of despond, to lift them 
up out of the mire and clay of sin, to place their 
feet upon the rock, and put new songs of thanks- 
giving and praise upon their lips. Every man or 
woman thus lifted up into a new life is a new 
volume of evidences of Christianity, a volume 
written in the red blood of human life that men 
will read and believe quicker than any other book 
of testimony. Christianity must always be 
judged by the kind of people it makes. Paul 
declares that if we really are risen with Christ, if 
our hearts, our love, our faith, our hope have fol- 
lowed him up out of the grave until we have 
really seen him, as Stephen did, at the right hand 
of the throne of God, then we shall be inspired to 
live a life of high thought, of pure imagination, 
of brave deeds — a wholesome, noble life that will 
touch the world with the helpfulness of Christ. 

Much is said about the self-sacrifice demanded 
of the Christian and about the self-denial of a 
Christian life; but let it always be understood 
that it is the kind of self-denial that lifts us up 
and gives us something better than what we have 
lost for Christ's sake. 

145 



146 



THE RISEN LIFE 



Not long ago a marriage solemnized at the 
Castle of Miramer in Austria- Hungary attracted 
worldwide attention because of the sacrifices 
which the bride made. She was the Princess 
Stephanie, daughter of Leopold, King of Belgium. 
She had been married in her girlhood to Rudolph, 
only son and heir of Francis Joseph, Emperor of 
Austria, and she naturally expected that in the 
course of time she would become Empress of 
Austria. But all such hopes were destroyed in 
1889 by the mysterious death of the dissolute 
Crown Prince, her husband, at the Castle of 
Meyerling, either as a suicide or the victim of a 
murderer. Since that time she has lived in state 
as a member of the Imperial family. Now, how- 
ever, she has become the wife of Count Elsmere 
Lonyia, a Hungarian nobleman. The marriage 
was resolutely opposed by her own relatives in 
Belgium and by her late husband's relatives in 
Austria. The latter warned her that if she mar- 
tied she would forfeit her right as a member of 
the Imperial family ; but she sacrificed her rank 
in order to wed the man she loved. Thus she 
became of lower rank through her marriage. But 
no man or woman ever does that through sacri- 
fices made to become a Christian. Christ offers 
just the opposite to us if we pledge our love to 
him. The humblest soul or the noblest that 
accepts Christ as a Saviour and friend is raised to 
the highest dignity ; and at last, when the great 
multitude of ransomed and redeemed saints shall 



THE RISEN LIFE 



147 



sing the rapturous songs of praise to Christ in 
heaven, the highest and the lowest of those who 
have been Christians here on earth will join with 
one another in singing praises, shouting their 
anthems "unto him that loved us and hath made 
us kings." 

We may be sure that whatever Christ has 
promised in his Word, or whatever he has done 
for others whose records are treasured there, he 
is able to do for us; and we may be certain also 
that no commandments are given to us that we 
cannot by Christ's help obey. 

A young English officer was marching to assault 
a position that was considered impregnable. A 
fellow officer said to him, 4 4 It cannot be taken." 
The brave young soldier replied, 4 4 It can; I have 
the order in my pocket." And take it he did. 
So there is nothing to which God has com- 
manded us in his Word, or to which the Holy 
Spirit directs us in our daily life, that we can- 
not do in Christ's name. 

The highest and noblest life that men and 
women have ever lived is possible to us if we 
walk in fellowship with Jesus Christ. What we 
need to do is to keep in close touch with our 
divine Lord. 

If we are to live this higher life, this risen life 
of Christ, we must live in an atmosphere where 
prayer will be natural to us and be to us a regular 
source of nourishment and strength. Dr. Way- 
land Hoyt says that he saw one day the memoran- 



148 



THE RISEN LIFE 



dum of a good Christian mother. It was a list of 
a great many things she had to think about and 
see done and get done during the day. Little 
things like these: 4 4 Moths, camphor, cedar chest, 
buy beans, leak in refrigerator, castor-oil, hair- 
pins, bluing/' And the thing that astonished 
and on reflection inspired Dr. Hoyt was that 
right in the midst of that long catalogue of frag- 
mentary notes of a mother's and housekeeper's 
daily duties, there was thrust this item, 4 4 Read 
and pray." When he saw that he knew what 
made that woman such a good mother, he knew 
why, with all her burdens, she was sweet-spirited 
and self-composed and ever able to give counsel 
and comfort and good cheer to those who were 
weak or discouraged. It was because prayer was 
her regular source of nourishment; it was just 
as regular as the worry. She lived her daily life 
on that high plane; her conversation with God 
was the natural and accustomed thing to do. The 
same wise precaution on our part will bring about 
the same results. No man can live the risen life 
in his own strength. Such a life can only be sus- 
tained by communion and fellowship with the 
risen Lord. 



THE BEAUTY OF THE SUMMER 
FIELDS 



During the last few weeks I have traveled 
many thousand of miles through a wide stretch 
of the summer world, reaching from the shores 
of Lake Michigan to the Atlantic, and from the 
mountains of New Hampshire to other mountains 
in Virginia. I have looked upon a great diversity 
of scenery; but back of it all, and beyond all, 
that which has left its deep impression on my 
mind has been the beauty of the summer world. 
It has impressed me more from the fact that it is 
a toiling season. The fields are full of w T orkmen, 
hot, dusty workmen earning their bread by the 
sweat of their brow. People work in springtime 
as well, but somehow it seems different then. In 
the springtime the whole world is coming out of 
prison into freedom; the earth as well as man has 
Easter time; the woods, the orchards, the hill- 
sides and the valleys are laughing in foliage and 
flowers, and the atmosphere is so full of hope and 
courage that there is a certain rollicking spirit 
about labor that makes it seem more like a picnic 
excursion than a time of hard grinding work; but 
in summer time there is no such illusion, the fresh 
impulse of the spring has spent its force and work 
is work. 

And yet all this workaday world of August 

U9 



iSo BEAUTY OF THE SUMMER FIELDS 



and September is beautiful beyond description. 
Think how grateful we ought to be for the mar- 
velous colorings of the summer fields. Suppose 
they had all been draped in black or a dirt brown 
to match the hard sober toil, how accursed indeed 
would be the lot of the man who works in them ; 
but, instead, they riot in color and in fragrance. 
How beautiful is a ripe field of cats, white almost 
as the snow in winter ; and how rich and golden a 
field of wheat ready for the reaper! And the 
corn ! Over and over again, as I have looked on 
the great fields of corn in the Hocking Valley or 
in the valley of the Muskingum, or along the 
banks of the Susquehanna, I have thought of an 
army of knights of the olden times when men 
went to battle plumed and tasseled and adorned. 
Every cornstalk growing out of a rich soil, with 
its nodding plume, its rustling draperies and its 
great hanging ears of yellow gold, all colored as 
though the chemistry of nature had nothing else 
to do but to make it glorious, is 4 'a thing of 
beauty and a joy forever. " 

And the fragrance of the fields! Who ever 
knew a perfume sweeter than the smell of ground 
when after a rain it turns from the farmer's plow 
with a track of robins following in the wake? Or 
what odor is so delicious as the breath of new- 
mown hay? Think you these are no compensa- 
tion to the toiler? Yea, verily. Even the 
hedge-rows and the fence-corners and the little 
pieces of swamp left in the marshy places untitled 



BEAUTY OF THE SUMMER FIELDS 151 



grow beautiful seemingly on purpose, to make 
the worker in the fields happy in his surround- 
ings. Nothing there is ugly from the golden-rod 
with its crown of yellow to the thistle which 
makes you forget its spikes in the gorgeous 
splendor of its bloom. 

Even the birds and animals who are marauders 
of the summer time are handsomely adorned. 
The squirrels that work havoc in the edges of the 
wheat, the cherry birds that take toll of the red 
fruit, and even the black crows, the highway rob- 
bers of the cornfields, are handsome and pictur- 
esque. The summer world would be lonely 
without them. 

Now what does all this mean? Can it mean 
anything else save that God believes that even 
toil may be made beautiful and charming. The 
wheat is no less valuable because it is golden, nor 
the corn less nourishing because of its beauty. 
God would teach us in the beauty of the summer 
fields that work may be adorned and made de- 
lightful, and surely that was his purpose in us. 
Paul said to some people whom he was trying to 
bring to their best, 4 4 Ye are God's husbandry," 
or, as the Revised Version has it, 4 4 Ye are God's 
tilled land." Surely the Lord is not more kind 
in his purpose to the fields than he is to us. In- 
deed, we know that he cares much more for us, 
for did not Jesus say, 4 4 Ye are of more value than 
many sparrows"? Then we may know that the 
God who covers all the summer world of labor 



152 BEAUTY OF THE SUMMER FIELDS 



with a charm and an attractiveness that no artist 
is able to catch even in momentary glimpses, has 
in his heart wonderful conceptions of beauty 
when he thinks of the possibilities that are in us. 
He knows that it is possible for us to become so 
gracious and beautiful in character that our most 
toilsome and prosaic day shall have all the rich 
beauty of a golden field of wheat and all the 
charms of a rustling army of ripe corn. 

Some of the figures which are used to describe 
God's purpose in us are very suggestive. Take 
that one in Isaiah where the Lord offers to make 
us into a balsam fir tree instead of a bush of 
thorns and briars. Who would not make an ex- 
change like that? And yet it is within the reach 
of every one of us." We excuse ourselves alto- 
gether too easily for the lack of beauty in our 
daily lives. People who do not excuse them- 
selves for the lack of a clean collar, or polished 
shoes, have plenty of excuses at the tongue's end 
for a fretful spirit, a harsh or cruel temper, or a 
selfish and greedy appetite. And yet how infi- 
nitely more ugly is the defect in the moral nature, 
the spot on the clothing of the soul, than the lack 
of beauty in the raiment of the body ! 

Let us cherish the great fact that the beauty of 
the summer fields is God's pledge that we too 
may be beautiful in our characters though en- 
gaged in the severest toil. Do you remember 
the Psalmist's prayer, "Let the beauty of the 
Lord our God be upon us"? He was praying for 



BEAUTY OP THE SUMMER FIELDS 153 

• 

exactly what the Lord does in nature. The sum- 
mer fields are beautiful because God pours his 
own heart out on them, and if we will open our 
thoughts and affections to receive the heavenly 
influences we too shall be clothed upon with the 
beauty of the divine nature. And if we do this, 
we shall be adorned with a raiment of the Spirit 
that will not be for special occasions only, but one 
that will clothe us with charms for every-day life. 



THE MOODS AND TENSES OF 
EVERY-DAY LIFE 

The prevailing mood in which we live is very 
important. A man is to be judged not so much 
by occasional acts as by the prevailing and con- 
trolling mood. One of the worst moods for a 
Christian is that of lethargy. It is better to make 
serious blunders now and then in the course of 
earnest and aggressive work for righteousness, 
than to never make any blunders because we are 
not doing anything. 

Martin Luther once told this allegory: The 
devil held a great anniversary at which the 
under imps were convened to make report to their 
master. "I let loose the wild beasts of the desert 
on a caravan of Christians," said one, "and their 
bones are now bleaching on the sands." "What 
of that?*' said Satan ; "their souls were all saved." 
"I drove the east wind, "said another, "against 
a ship freighted with Christians, and they were 
all drowned." "What of that?" said Satan, 
"their souls were all saved." "For ten years I 
tried to get a single Christian asleep," said a 
third, "and I succeeded, and left him so." 
"Then," says Luther, "the devil shouted and 
the night stars of hell sang for joy!" If your 
prevailing mood in the church is that of slum- 

154 



MOODS AND TENSES OF LIFE 155 



ber and lethargy you may be sure that you 
make the devil glad. Another dangerous mood 
for a Christian is a mood of indifference as to 
his influence with others. Frequently we hear 
people say, and sometimes with a very pious air : 
"It doesn't matter what people think of me; I 
know my heart is right." But is it true that it 
doesn't matter? It most certainly does matter 
what people think of you. A gentleman writing 
in the Outlook gives this striking illustration of 
the danger of being misunderstood by other 
people : In sight of his office window is a church 
tower on three sides of which is a clock face. On 
one of these one of the hands has been broken, 
making the clock tell strange tales. Of course 
there are people who do not understand the cir- 
cumstances and are misled. At heart the old 
clock is all right; but that does not alter the 
seriousness of the fact that people have been late 
in meeting their engagements and have missed 
their trains because the face is not an index of 
that which it covers. Our prevailing mood ought 
to be wide-awake and earnest, that our influence 
may be for Christ. 

Our prevailing mood ought also to be one of 
courage. A visitor to Northfield says that he was 
taken into the room where Moody died. Over 
the bed on which the great evangelist breathed 
his last the visitor was interested to notice a mag- 
nificent engraving of "Daniel and the Lions." 
It was a picture which Mr. Moody greatly loved. 



156 MOODS AND TENSES OF LIFE 



He lived his life in harmony with that picture. 
He was as brave as Daniel to do what he thought 
to be right. One of the greatest sources of his 
power was that his prevailing mood was invinc- 
ible courage. 

The Christian's prevailing mood ought to be 
one of sympathy. A little girl six years old, with 
big blue eyes that were full of tears, came to 
Bellevue Hospital recently with a cat in her arms. 
The cat had been wounded by a street car and 
one leg was badly mangled. At the gate the girl 
told Tom, the big policeman, the cat was hurt. 
"I want a doctor to help it," she said. Tom took 
her to the receiving ward where he found a doctor 
who was not busy. "Here's a case, Doc," said 

the policeman. "I ain't a " what he was 

going to say was that he wasn't a cat doctor, but 
when he saw the little girl's eyes he broke it off 
and said, " Let me see." After examining the 
patient his comment was, "Pretty bad. " Then 
he got some knives, a little bottle of chloroform 
and some bandages. "You must help me," he 
said to the girl. She aided bravely, though it 
made her pale as she watched the doctor's sharp 
knife and deft fingers. Soon the doctor had done 
all he could, and as the cat was recovering from 
the anaesthetic he said, "Now you can take your 
kitty home with you." "It ain't mine," the girl 
said. "I just found it. Now you take care of it. 
Good-bye. " Now, the little girl lived in the mood 
of sympathy. If she continues in it, when she 



MOODS AND TENSES OF LIFE 157 



gets to be as old as the Good Samaritan she will 
live the same kind of life. 

But I want to say something about the tense in 
which we live. Some people live too much in the 
past tense. They get their heads turned back, 
and they look that way so much that the neck 
gets stiff until they can't get it round again. 
They are always seeing where they have missed 
it and vainly wishing they could go back and 
make it different. Of course they cannot do 
that, and so they are miserable. 

There are other people who manage to get just 
about as much misery by living in the future 
tense. Things are not so very bad to-day, but 
to-morrow and the day after the clouds are black 
as night. And so they worry about what is going 
to come until they are weakened and enfeebled 
about all their work to-day. Living in either the 
past or the future tense in such a way as to get 
trouble and discouragement out of it is to deliver 
yourselves over to the demon of worry, and there 
are few things worse than that. Worry is a good 
deal harder than work. Some one sings about it 
very truly : 

"It is not the work, but the worry, 

That wrinkles the smooth fair face, 
That blends gray hairs with the dusky, 

And robs the form of its grace ; 
That dims the luster and sparkle 

Of eyes that were once so bright, 
But now are heavy and troubled, 

With a weary , despondent light. 



158 MOODS AND TENSES OF LIFE 



"It is not the work, but the worry, 

That drives all sleep away, 
As we toss and turn and wonder 

About the cares of the day. 
Do we think of the hands' hard labor, 

Or the steps of the tired feet? 
Ah ! no, but we plan and ponder 

How to make both ends meet. 

"It is not the work, but the worry, 

That makes us sober and sad, 
That makes us narrow and sordid, 

When we should be cheery and glad. 
There's a shadow before the sunlight, 

And ever a cloud in the blue, 
The scent of the roses is tainted, 

The notes of the song are untrue. 

"It is not the work, but the worry, 

That makes the world grow old, 
That numbers the years of their children 

Ere half their story is told ; 
That weakens their faith in heaven 

And the wisdom of God's great plan. 
Ah ! 'tis not the work, but the worry, 

That breaks the heart of man." 

The only safe way is to live in the present 
tense. Yesterday we cannot reach except that 
we may repent of its sins and be forgiven, and 
the future has not yet come and will be sufficient 
unto itself on its arrival. To-day is our own. 
The duty of life with us is 44 now/' To live 
humbly toward God, to live courageously and 
generously, reaching out our hands in a brotherly 
way and doing what good we can to-day is our 



MOODS AND TENSES OF LIFE 159 



privilege. Every day lived right will make it 
better for us to-morrow, whatever that maybe. 
To live each day as though we only had the one 
day on earth— the one day in which to do good, 
the one day in which to praise God, the one day 
in which to be loyal to Christ, the one day in 
which to make the world happy — that is the way 
to live in order to bring something of heaven into 
the present. And surely that is the way we 
ought to live ; we who are only travelers passing 
through this world to our home beyond. As 
Joseph Luccock sings: 

1 ' We are pilgrims bound for home, 

For the sunny, sunny clime, 
Where the balmy zephyrs waft the sweets 

Of endless summer time. 
Where hearts are always gay, 

Where fruits immortal grow, 
And music mingles 'mid the scene, 

Where joys unending flow. ' ' 



THE BLESSINGS OF HARD WORK 

The other day I asked two friends who were 
sitting together, 44 What are the blessings of hard 
work?" One immediately replied, "One is that 
it gives you a good appetite." Now I think that 
was a good answer. Hard work for the body or 
the mind gives a certain zest for nourishment, 
creates a demand for food, and God has so 
ordered it that the taking of food either physic- 
ally or intellectually to a normal, healthy man or 
woman should be a pleasant performance. 

It is a terrible thing to lose one's appetite. It 
is not an uncommon thing for the appetite to fail 
physically, and without any seeming reason no 
zest or desire for food is felt. To eat then is a 
weariness of the flesh, and unless the trouble can 
be remedied the entire health of the body will 
soon be undermined and the unnourished system 
rapidly fall into decay and death. I remember 
the case of a man who went away from home to 
try to get back his health, and who stopped for 
some time in that great palace-like hotel in St. 
Augustine, Florida. He wrote back to his family 
in the North wonderful stories about the beauty 
of his surroundings. The climate was balmy and 
delightful. The hotel was a dream of art. Bands 
of music regaled the guests at their meals. The 

1 60 



THE BLESSINGS OF HARD WORK 161 



table was loaded with rare dishes and with a won- 
derful variety of tropical fruits. But he always 
closed his letters with a sigh. "It is all so beau- 
tiful, so romantic, so delightful,'' he said, "if I 
only had an appetite." The appetite never came, 
and it was not long before they brought him home 
to die. 

An appetite is just as necessary in mental and 
moral and spiritual affairs. There is nothing 
more serious than to lose one's taste for the 
Bible, so that any other book seems more attract- 
ive; to lose one's appetite for listening to the 
preaching of the Word of God, so that the Bible 
stories of human life, of the struggle of men try- 
ing to climb out of the mire and the clay up to 
the Rock of Ages, no longer interest the mind 
and heart. To lose one's appetite for the prayei 
meeting; to reach a place where the strains of an 
opera stir one more than the great spiritual hymns 
of the church. That is a sad thing, for there can 
be no real spiritual peace and joy unless there be 
an appetite for spiritual food. Now, just as 
many a man who has been in the law-office or in 
the school-room or the banking-house for a long 
time, until he has got into a rut and lost his appe- 
tite, will go out home on the farm in the summer 
time and work in the hayfield and do chores 
around the barn until he finds himself coming 
hungry to his meals; so many a man who has lost 
all spiritual vitality and zest, if he will only put 
himself to work doing the things in which Christ 



162 THE BLESSINGS OF HARD WORK 



is interested in the world — trying to lift the bur- 
den off of some weary shoulder, seeking to lead 
some poor sinner into the light, trying to help 
some handcuffed prisoner of the devil to find his 
freedom — will find all his appetite for the Bible 
and the prayer meeting and the old hymns com- 
ing back, and he will be as hungry as ever for 
the feast of good things that God puts on the 
table for his workers. 

The other friend, after a little reflection, said 
that one of the blessings of hard work is that we 
enjoy the rest that comes afterwards. That is a 
good answer also. No man knows anything 
about the enjoyment of rest unless he has worked 
until he is dead tired. People who never have 
been tired have no idea of the exquisite sense of 
relaxation which comes at the close of an honest 
day's toil. So there are many people in the 
church who never know the exquisite hours of 
restful communion, of quiet peace, that God 
gives to his tired children who have worked till 
they have used up all their strength in his cause. 

But there is still another blessing of hard 
work, and that is the strength that can only come 
that way. There are some things you cannot buy 
with money, and one of them is strength. If a 
man could go into the market and buy strength 
by the bottleful, as you can quack medicine, what 
giants there would be in these days of million- 
aires! But strength is not to be had that way; it 
is personal, and great strength can never be 



THE BLESSINGS OF HARD WORK 163 



acquired except through, exercise. It is through 
bearing burdens that men grow strong to endure. 
A man works until he has used up the vitality he 
had in store, and goes home at night saying to 
himself, "I have expended all the strength I 
had" ; but the next morning, if he has had a good 
night's rest and plenty of nourishing food, he is 
conscious that he goes back a stronger man than 
ever. Somewhere, somehow, through the ex- 
pending of his strength a deposit of added 
strength was made in his physical banking-house, 
and through his hard work he becomes a stronger 
man day by day. 

Now the philosophy is the same in spiritual 
matters. It is by exercise, by hard work for the 
church, for the service of our brothers and sisters, 
that we become strong, morally and spiritually. 
It is only through temptation and strain that 
strong character can be developed. The eagle 
gets its mighty strength of wing, not because it 
gorges itself with more food than other birds, but 
because it flies many hours a day in the face of the 
sun. An eagle has been known to pick up from 
a barnyard a pig four times his own weight and 
carry its squealing burden away with ease. God 
means that we shall not be pigs simply to gorge 
ourselves on the good things of life, but eagles to 
mount up into the sky on great deeds intent. 



THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 

Do you know the signs of the first flush of 
autumn? Have you seen one bough on the maple 
tree — one on the tree standing by the lake, or 
bending over the hole in the brook where the old 
trout hides — suddenly flame out into crimson and 
scarlet? Have you heard the hum of the thresh- 
ing-machine in the fields where the shocks of 
wheat look like the thatched cottages in Scotland? 
Have you heard the roar of the blackbirds as they 
gather in regiments before the little aristocrats 
go south for the winter? Have you seen the wild 
geese flying overhead with their faces toward the 
equator, a huge triangle so far up against the blue 
of the sky that you cannot hear their conversation 
as they sail away toward the warmer waters and 
the milder skies? Have you felt the pause of 
nature, the brooding stillness hanging over the 
orchard and the garden? It is hard to describe 
it, but a sort of prophecy in the air tells that sum- 
mer is departing and presages the cooler days and 
the new beauties and glories of autumn just at 
hand. 

All these signs come into the first flush of 
autumn. They foresee a time of full barns and 
overflowing cellars, the storing up of rich treas- 
ures from the harvests of all the springtime toil 

164 



THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 165 



and all the busy work of the hot summer days. 
Something like that comes to us as men and 
women when we strike the middle line of our 
expected stay on earth. The seasons of life are 
much like the seasons of the year. Infancy and 
early childhood are full of squalls, and childhood 
grown a little older has much of April in it; espe- 
cially the April showers that are to bring forth 
May flowers. May is beautiful both in the spring- 
time and in the youth of human life. It, too, is a 
brooding month, when one wonders what is com- 
ing out of it all, whether it be in the promise of 
the fields or in the budding boy or girl. And 
June! 4 4 What so rare as a day in June?" — 
whether it be the June of the nest-building robins 
and the first early cherries; the June of the 
luscious strawberries and the roses, or the June 
of the "sweet sixteen" of girlhood or of the awk- 
ward and bashful but hopeful and ambitious boy- 
hood in high school with eye toward the college. 

July is a new epoch. Life is serious now, but it 
it is the seriousness of summer's heat and promise. 
It is a prosperous seriousness. Everything seems 
possible. Days are long, nights are short. The 
corn grows all the twenty-four hours and the 
young womanhood and young manhood have long 
days of confident assurance of success and short 
nights of doubt or trial. Sorrow may endure for 
the brief night, but joy cometh in the morning of 
a day that seems never to end. August, and the 
fields are white or golden ; the orchards are fra- 



166 THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 



grant with the early apples ; the ears of corn are 
beginning to hang heavy on the stock. The rat- 
tle of the reaper is heard in the land; life is real, 
now; life is earnest. The season of picnics is 
almost past ; work begins with the dawn and ends 
when it is too dark to see the sheaves in the field. 
How like life in those vigorous muscular years 
from twenty-five to forty ! 

From forty to fifty, which means September 
and the opening of October, is the first flush of 
the autumn. The career is settled; it may grow 
infinitely larger yet, but its outlines are marked. 
Until the man is thirty, or even thirty-five, he 
may be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher, or 
a business man, or almost what he pleases, 
depending only on the limitations of his in- 
tellectual inheritance; but at forty he is one 
or the other, and he will change at his peril. 
The track is now open before him. Wise he 
is if he fixes his eye on the goal with deep, 
intense earnestness and strips himself more 
than ever for the race. They ought to be the 
best years so far in his life. They are the years 
when a man has all his resources at his command. 
The cellar of the mind and heart is filled with all 
the knowledge he has gained by his education in 
school, through reading, and by rubbing against 
men; indeed, all his personal experience in 
human life. He has a background to draw 
upon, resources that were utterly unknown to 
him in his youth. His judgment should be bet- 



THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 167 



ter, his imagination should be more thoroughly- 
disciplined and trained, his perceptions keener, 
his purpose more steadfast, his heart more mel- 
low with sympathy and kindly fellowship than in 
any of the years of youth and early manhood up 
to the noon and beyond of life. 

There is always a little touch of sadness in the 
autumn which I think is both reasonable and un- 
reasonable. It is reasonable because the imme- 
diate past of spring and summer can never come 
again, and just before lies winter, harsh and for- 
bidding. It is unreasonable because there are 
other springs and summers in God's bag of 
mercies, and, please God, they may have earlier 
crocuses, more fragrant violets, more luxurious 
roses, richer wheat fields, than those that are 
gone. It is unreasonable also from another 
standpoint, and that is that winter also is in God's 
order and has many blessings that are more 
beautiful than any other season of the year. It 
would be missed more, perhaps, than any other 
season if it were lost out of the calendar. 

But, you say, "How is it possible for a man or 
a woman to get comfort out of such an illustra- 
tion, in the face of the fact that the bounding 
limbs and dancing spirits of childhood, the 
optimism and boundless courage of youth, the 
strong muscles, and the conscious power of mid- 
dle life are passing, and for many have passed, 
and we are facing toward the west with the cer- 
tainty that childhood and youth and full mature 



i68 THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 



strength never can come back, and that old age 
with its weakness and its decay of power lies 
athwart the path in the near future?" 

Yet we can face all that with a steady pulse 
and a quiet heart; face it because it is God's 
order and he knows best; face it because age 
with its wintry frost of white hair and weakness 
has its compensations to the child of God ; face it 
because pure-hearted old men or women, with 
the sunshine of God upon their hearts and coun- 
tenances, are necessary to childhood and youth 
and mature strength to hold the world steady and 
keep it rolling onward toward its final redemp- 
tion. We can face it because we do not face 
disaster and final eclipse of our powers. There 
may be a few brief years while we tarry here, at 
the end, when our powers shall sleep to some 
extent, but soon the call will come, 4 'It is 
enough; come higher." Then shall come a 
season of the year that this world has never 
known, a season in which springtime and sum- 
mer and autumn and winter shall each have their 
beauty and glory merged into one blessed im- 
mortality ; the season in which the innocence and 
beauty of childhood, the hopefulness and the 
enthusiasm of youth, the strength and dauntless 
courage of young manhood and womanhood, the 
rich and mellow fruitfulness of autumn, the 
glorious and exalted years of the old age of the 
saints, shall all be merged into one glorious ex- 
perience that shall last forever. 



THE FIRST FLUSH OF AUTUMN 169 



This is the glory of our Christian faith. It 
gives us victory over weakness, makes us patient 
to bear pain, inspires us to smile through our 
tears, and nerves the heart in old age because 
"we know that if our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, 
an house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." With Paul, we ' 'reckon that the 
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to 
be compared with the glory which shall be 
revealed in us"; for we know that "our light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory." 



THE BAD AND THE GOOD KIND OF 
SENSITIVENESS 

The wrong kind of sensitiveness is born of self- 
ishness and egotism. Men and women who 
think they deserve a great deal of attention, and 
then feel they are not fawned upon and flattered 
as much as they imagine they deserve, are ready 
to hang their heads or burst into tears with the 
broken-hearted expression, 4 4 Nobody loves me!" 
Winifred Black hits the nail on the head when she 
says that the right way to answer that exclama- 
tion is with the natural query, "Why should 
they?" 

Some one has well said that when a man looks 
either for slights or for opportunities of service 
he always finds what he is looking for. Haman 
was a good type of one kind of sensitive man. 
Haman fed on public applause, and he hungered 
for every one to bow down to him. And every- 
body in town did bow down to him except one old 
Jew named Mordecai, but so sensitive was Haman 
that all the bowing and scraping of a city full of 
people went for nothing because that stiff-necked 
old Jew would not bend his head. Haman was 
one bow short, and therefore miserable. Who 
cf us do not know such people? It is the same 
kind of thing when a mother gets vexed and sor- 

170 



SENSITIVENESS 



171 



rowful, and is almost ready to take her child out 
of Sunday-school, because some other little girl 
or little boy is called on to speak oftener in Sun- 
day-school concerts than is the child who is the 
apple of her own eye. 

Another kind of sensitiveness which is bad is 
typified by Martha, at whose house Christ liked 
to go and visit. Martha was sensitive because 
Mary, her sister, did not express her love for the 
Master in pies and doughnuts and roast beef in 
the same way as she herself did. But Christ told 
Martha not to worry about it, for Mary had got- 
ten deeper into the heart of things in her relation 
to the Lord than had she. How many times we 
are tempted to that kind of sensitiveness. Some 
people seem to prosper in a religious way, and 
yet they don't worship the Lord just as we do, 
and we are tempted to fret and get sulky about 
it. All such sensitiveness is mischievous. Let 
each one of us do his best according to his own 
light. 

One of the most fruitful sources of trouble from 
sensitiveness comes from a temptation to fear 
that we will not be given the best things and be 
made as much of as some other people in the 
church or community. Now that comes from an 
entirely wrong idea of the source of happiness. 
Senator Chauncey Depew, in a speech in London, 
before the great International Christian En- 
deavor Society Convention, made this remark- 
able statement. Said he; "The way to be 



172 



SENSITIVENESS 



happy is, if there is any good thing in you, 
to let others have it." That is, we get our 
happiness not by standing around like a beggar 
ready to catch what other people will throw to us, 
but by going forward like a king or a queen, in 
generous love bestowing the largess of our abun- 
dance upon every one who will share with us. 
The happy man is not the one who is sensitively 
fearing he will be slighted in the distribution of 
blessings, but rather the one who is seeking to 
make himself useful and helpful to others. 

Now there is a good kind of sensitiveness, and 
I wish we had a great deal more of it. It is the 
kind which Philip had. He was very popular in 
Jerusalem, and everything seemed to favor him ; 
but the angel of the Lord spoke to him and sent 
him away into the desert toward the city of Gaza, 
and he arose and went without a question. He 
went because he was sensitive to the Spirit of 
God. And as he went along the way, not know- 
ing what God wanted him to do, but believing 
that God w r ould bring it out all clear in the end, 
a great opportunity came to him. Suddenly there 
came driving along the road on which Philip was 
walking a man, the treasurer of Queen Candace 
of Ethiopia, and he was sitting in his chariot 
reading one of the old prophecies. Of course 
Philip did not know what he was reading, but the 
Spirit of the Lord suggested to him that he 
should immediately join himself to this chariot. 
And so Philip ran along beside the chariot, and as 



SENSITIVENESS 



i73 



he ran he heard the man reading from the 
prophecy of Isaiah, and he shouted above the din 
of the wheels, " Understandest thou what thou 
readest?" I suppose the treasurer was greatly 
astonished when he saw him, and he shouted 
back, 44 How can I, except some man should 
guide me?" Then he stopped the chariot and 
begged Philip to get up and sit with him, and 
explain the prophecy to him. 4 4 Then Philip 
opened his mouth, and began at the same scrip- 
ture, and preached unto him Jesus." That is the 
kind of sensitiveness that we need. Oppor- 
tunities slip by us every day because we are not 
sensitive to the divine Spirit. 

The late Rev. William I. Fee, a minister for 
over half a century in Ohio, was as sensitive as 
Philip to the Spirit of God, and God gave him 
mighty power to win souls. He was standing 
one day in one of the homes of his people, in 
Hamilton, Ohio, where he had just christened 
a child, when he saw pass the window the 
leading infidel in the city. The very moment 
he saw him it was strangely impressed upon his 
mind that he should hail him, and walk down the 
street with him as far as his own house. Leav- 
ing his overcoat and hat he ran to the door and 
called him, saying: 

4 4 Mr. O , if you will wait a moment, I shall 

be pleased to walk with you as far as my house. M 

The man assented cheerfully; and Mr. Fee, 
excusing himself to the family, put on his hat 



174 



SENSITIVENESS 



and coat and joined him. They walked together 
in silence to the corner of the next street, when 
the minister began to fear that he was placed in a 
very awkward position, to say the least of it. As 
they paused on the corner of the street he said : 

4 4 Mr. O , my conduct in hailing you as I did 

no doubt seems very strange to you, and needs 
an explanation. I tell you frankly that the im- 
pression to do this came to my mind like a flash. 
I was engaged at the moment in another matter, 
and I cannot account for it. I do not know why 
I did it; the only impression was that I should 
join you, and walk with you." 

The man became pale; and after a moment, 
with the deepest emotion, he said: 44 I know. 
God Almighty sent you. I will tell you the 
truth. You may have heard some weeks ago 
that I was assaulted by an enemy and severely 
wounded. On examination the doctor informed 
me that the wound was mortal, and that my life 
would probably terminate very soon. My infi- 
delity vanished in a moment. The sins of my 
life came up before me in awful array. I felt 
that I was a lost sinner. My soul was drifting 
toward eternity without help or hope. What 
should I do? Another examination took place, 
and, to my delight, the surgeon informed me that 
he was mistaken in the first examination, and had 
strong hope that I would soon recover. This 
gave me great joy; but the foundation upon 
which I have been building was shattered, and 



SENSITIVENESS 



175 



the consciousness that I was a great sinner was as 
vivid as ever. I at once thought of you, and 
determined to visit you and ask your counsel as 
soon as I was able. I went to your residence; 
but had no courage to go in. I went again; but 
my courage failed me, until I went six times. At 
last I prayed God that I might in some way or 
other meet you and unburden my soul to you. 
And now, sir, I can't but regard our meeting to- 
day, strange as it may seem to you, as the answer 
of a poor sinner's prayer." 

We may be sure that Dr. Fee led that man to 
Christ with great joy. That is the kind of sensi- 
tiveness we need, and if we have it we may be 
sure that it will banish the evil kind from our 
hearts. 



VACATION RELIGION 

There are several distinct dangers which con- 
front the Christian in the vacation season. If he 
stays at home during the time when many people, 
either for business or pleasure, go away, he is 
tempted to feel that he is somehow imposed upon 
in having an added burden in helping to carrv 
the load of church life when so many are free 
from it. He is also likely to feel that because 
many are away, and the services will be more 
lightly attended, that he might as well stay away 
too, and that it is not worth while to go ahead with 
his accustomed fidelity in church attendance and 
service. Now all these are sophistries of the evil 
one. Of course we need religion in the summer 
just as much as we do in the winter. People have 
sickness and sorrow and matters that perplex and 
irritate and doubts that fly forth like foul bats in 
the summer time as well as in the winter. There- 
fore we need the church of God, we need to 
steady ourselves with the public worship ; and this 
need is often more urgent during the vacation 
than at any other time. 

On the other hand, it is a peculiar opportunity 
to show fidelity to God and to the church. Dur- 
ing the prosperous season of the church we may 
be led to attend for many other reasons than our 

176 



VACATION RELIGION 177 



humble desire to worship God and to serve him 
with loyalty; but during the slack time we have 
the privilege of going to please God, and to stand 
by faithfully when our presence will count for a 
great deal. No one ever does anything like that 
for the Lord without receiving rich blessings in 
return. David established a precedent, long 
ago, that the man who stood by the stuff should 
share in the spoil equally with the man who went 
out to battle. That is very good, but God does 
better than that. He pays larger wages to the 
people who stand by him in emergencies and are 
faithful when the workers are scarce. 

There are also peculiar dangers for the Chris- 
tian who goes away from home. Vacations are 
good things for tired men and women. The bow 
that is always bent will after awhile lose its spring 
and refuse to send the arrow toward the target. 
But in going on a vacation it is very important 
to remember that many of the forces that hold us 
to goodness and make it comparatively easy for 
us to be Christians are slackened in their pres- 
sure. At home we are greatly upheld by the 
consciousness that everybody knows us, and that 
any deviation from the path of right will be 
quickly seen and remarked, and will bring dis- 
credit upon us. One of the powerful forces for 
righteousness in this world is a proper regard 
which every good man and woman has for the 
esteem and good opinion of their fellows. But 
when one gets away among strangers there is 



VACATION RELIGION 



often a sense of freedom from inspection, a feel- 
ing that what one does will not be commented on 
and will therefore do no harm. Such an idea is 
exceedingly fallacious ; for whether we are known 
or not, a wrong act cannot fail to have its vicious 
and evil influence, just as surely among strangers 
as among people who know us. It will also have 
its bad effect upon us, and will deteriorate our 
moral nature; and, above all, it will be a sin 
against God just the same as if the whole world 
knew about it. Therefore we need to resist this 
devil of license which is always whispering his 
evil insinuations into the ears of people away 
from home. 

Another temptation which comes to the Chris- 
tian on a vacation is the thought that in vacation 
time he need not be careful about observing the 
strict duties of a Christian life. The giving way 
to that temptation has caused many a Christian 
on a vacation to lose a hundredfold more than he 
gained. He gained in body, but lost in moral 
and spiritual quality. The seeds of a worldly and 
irreligious life are often sown in vacation time 
and grow up afterwards to choke out the good 
seed sown by the Lord. We need to remember 
that it is when we are off guard, are unharnessed 
from a keen sense of responsibility, that the devil 
has the best chance at us. Many old proverbs 
grow out of this fact, such as, 4 'An idle mind is 
the devil's workshop" ; or 4 * Satan finds work for 
idle hands to do." Many people who when at 



VACATION P.ELIGION 



179 



home in the regular harness of every-day work 
were able to resist the devil, have been over- 
thrown by him when off guard. 

Christians away from home ought for many 
reasons to be specially careful to keep up their 
regular devotions. Prayer, and the reading of 
the Bible, and little opportunities for Christian 
service should be carefully kept in mind. This 
will not detract from the vacation ; it will add to 
its joy, and at the same time will give us the 
opportunity of doing a great deal of good by the 
wayside. 

I have known of a number of cases where the 
faithful Christian life of a tourist or a summer 
boarder, in the mountains or by the shore of a 
lake or the sea, has been the source of inspiration 
to some young man or young woman that has 
turned his or her entire career into a path of noble 
Christian service. A strange voice in a little 
country prayer meeting will often make a red- 
letter day of happy remembrance to a group of 
faithful disciples of Jesus, and will be to them a 
source of fresh impulse from the very heart of God. 

In traveling on the cars, or on the steamboat, 
the opportunities for Christian service are ever 
abundant. The man who fights the temptation 
to be cross and peevish, who gives a soft answer 
to a petulant traveler and keeps, in spite of dust 
or heat, a sweet and cheerful countenance, makes 
the vacation world more religious and more 
Christlike. 



LIVING UP TO OUR VISIONS 

Paul never said a greater thing about himself 
than when he declared to King Agrippa that he 
had lived up to the heavenly vision that came to 
him on the way to Damascus. It is one thing to 
have a vision, and quite another thing to live tip 
to it, though at the time of the vision it may 
seem a very easy thing to do. Vision hours are 
usually times of exaltation. At such times we 
are lifted up on high ; we breathe a noble atmos- 
phere; the heroic spirit seems the only air pos- 
sible to us, and we feel that we can go right on 
without much struggle, keeping faithful to the 
highest standard and loyally pouring our lives 
into the doing of noble deeds. But it often looks 
very different the next morning. We find then 
that that which looked easy, and was easy in cer- 
tain associations, requires, under different circum- 
stances, all the grit and perseverance there is in us. 

It is very important that we should get it thor- 
oughly fixed in our minds that visions of duty and 
opportunity are not given us simply to revel in. 
Some people like to go to camp-meetings, or re- 
vivals, or great religious conventions where their 
minds and hearts will be stirred, just that they 
may dream dreams and see visions and revel in 
religious emotions. Then they go home and are 

i So 



LIVING UP TO OUR VISIONS 181 



as cross and fretful and stingy and avaricious and 
mean-spirited all the rest of the year as if they 
had not had their religious picnic. There is no 
value at all in such performances. A vision is 
useless unless it leads at once to conduct. When 
Paul saw and listened to the Christ on his way to 
Damascus, he at once felt this truth, and his cry 
was, 4 4 Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" It 
was not long until some one was leading Paul, 
still blind, on the way toward instruction and on 
to his great career of service. 

Later on there came a vision to Paul of the 
great need of the Gospel among the pagan lands 
beyond; but that vision had its messenger, its 
"man of Macedonia," to lead him out from his 
vision of duty to perform the service demanded. 
There is no duty without its messenger if Ave are 
ready to follow. Many times, however, the mes- 
senger has to go off without us, and then the 
vision has been a failure so far as we are con- 
cerned. 

When Peter was stopping at the house of the 
tanner, down by the sea coast, and there came that 
wonderful vision of the sheet let down from 
heaven, with its many kinds of animals, and the 
command came to Peter to slay and eat, he was 
scarcely roused from the vision before one came 
to tell him that three men waited for him at the 
door to lead him on the way to the house of Cor- 
nelius, where his vision was to work itself out in 
duty. If Peter had failed to follow those men, 



182 LIVING UP TO OUR VISIONS 

that is the last we should have heard of Peter. 
But Peter was not disobedient unto the heavenly 
vision, and his vision, lived up to, made him for- 
ever after a broader, nobler man. 

God gives us visions in these days. Every day 
they come to us, these visions of duty, and we 
can either revel in them, and philosophize about 
them, and send the messenger away empty; or 
we may with the devotion and fidelity of Paul or 
Peter follow the way they lead and, living up to 
our vision, do service for God and man. 

These visions come to us in many ways. Some- 
times they come in a paper or a book that rouses 
our emotions even to tears concerning some 
oppressed people, some wrong in the commu- 
nity that needs righting in the strength of 
God and in fellowship with Jesus Christ. 
There are two ways in which we may treat 
that impulse, that heavenly vision. One is to 
let it expend itself in feeling; and if we do 
that it will not be long before we are harder- 
hearted than ever and more indifferent to right- 
eousness. The other way is to follow the new 
impulse, the aroused emotion, and let it vent 
itself in seeking to right the wrong, to lift up the 
oppressed, to bring help to those in need. If we 
choose the latter course, and live up to our vi- 
sion, we are lifted up into the atmosphere of 
vision ; we climb to a higher level of life and in 
every way our hearts and minds are enlarged. 

Almost every day we are stirred with some 



LIVING UP TO OUR VISIONS 183 



vision from heaven that arouses in our hearts 
sympathy for some one whom we meet or hear 
about. We are prompted to speak the sympa- 
thetic, kind word, or by a little self-sacrifice to go 
and do a gracious, brotherly deed. If we do not 
respond at once the opportunity slips away, the 
chance to give vent to our sympathy passes on 
and is gone, and it will not be so easy to arouse 
us on another occasion. But if we speak the kind 
word, do the helpful act in a loving, helpful 
spirit, then our vision exalts us. 

The same thing is true of new impulses that 
come to us for a holier, more consecrated, per- 
sonal life. It may be you have gotten into a low 
tone of spiritual life. You have not given your- 
self over to wickedness, but your prayers are 
formal, your Bible reading irregular and joyless, 
and your service to the church has but little heart 
and spirit. Suddenly a sermon, or a prayer meet- 
ing, or the sickness or death of a friend, some 
volcanic occurrence, shakes you out of your 
lethargy and lifts you into an hour of vision and 
makes God and Christ and heaven and goodness 
seem more real and important, and your heart 
and soul throbs anew with longing and desire to 
live a bright, strong, vital, religious life. Ah, 
that is a glorious hour! It may be the source of 
fresh impulse that will drive you toward heaven 
with more speed than you have ever known. 
Live up to that vision, and all the years to come 
will be sweeter and more beautiful because of it. 



THE UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRIS- 
TIAN LIFE 

Christian people, in harmony with many other 
folks, have a good many ups and downs, experi- 
ences on the mountain-top and in the valley, that 
are simply incidental to the ordinary trials and 
frailties of human nature. These are very often 
wrongly called the ups and downs of their Chris- 
tian life. They are experiences that come to 
them as human beings, not as Christians; they 
come because they have a bad stomach or a good 
one ; come because they have exposed themselves, 
and have the rheumatism ; or because they have 
had a good dinner, and feel well over it. All such 
experiences, which have so much to do with our 
moods simply as human beings, are of no impor- 
tance when we touch the higher question of one's 
career as a Christian. 

What I wish to speak to you about is something 
very different. There are legitimate ups and 
downs in the Christian life. In the story of the 
Sermon on the Mount, the most lengthy of all the 
recorded sermons of Jesus, you will notice that it 
is stated that Christ went up into the mountain, 
and when his disciples followed him up, and 
gathered about him, he began that wonderful dis- 
course which has had more to do with modern 

184 



UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 185 



civilization than any other address or sermon 
that was ever delivered. It was there that he 
gave them that wonderful paragraph about the 
"Blesseds. " It was there that he searched deep 
into their hearts, and told them that Christianity 
was an extra superimposed on the ordinary stage 
of human life, indicating a high-water mark in 
the career of mankind. It was in that sermon 
that he used that wonderful figure of the salt and 
the light, and the city set on a hill, to tell of the 
beauty and usefulness of Christian character. It 
was in that sermon that he revealed to his dis- 
ciples the immense superiority of Christianity 
over any formal religion, making it clear to his 
hearers that no formal ceremonial religion could 
take the place of a sincere heart-fellowship with 
the King of kings. In that sermon Christ taught 
his disciples about prayer; told them of the won- 
derful power of secret prayer on the public life, 
and gave them that model which we call the 
Lord's Prayer, and which millions of people 
repeat every day. All those wonderful sayings 
about laying up treasures in heaven, about keep- 
ing the inner eye of the soul single toward God 
and duty, the beautiful illustration about the 
fowls of the air that have no fields to sow and no 
sheaves to reap and no barns in which to store 
their goods and yet are fed of God, the picture of 
the lilies of the field that toil not nor spin and 
yet are beautifully clothed of heaven— all are in 
that sermon. It would be hard to find a sermon 



186 UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 



anywhere with such a wonderful series of illustra- 
tions. The figure of the man taking the mote 
out of his brother's eye while there is a beam in 
his own ; the warning about casting pearls before 
swine; the asking, and seeking, and knocking 
figure ; the parallel of the straight gate and the 
wide gate ; of the broad way and the narrow way ; 
the picture of the false prophet that comes in 
sheep's clothing when he is inwardly a ravening 
wolf; the man who tries to gather grapes of 
thorns and figs of thistles ; and finally, that tre- 
mendous picture of the two houses, built respect- 
ively by the wise and the foolish man, the one 
building on the rock and the other on the sand, 
both living alike comfortably until the storm 
comes, but when the winds beat, and the rain 
pours down, and a house is specially needed, the 
one built on the sand is washed away and de- 
stroyed, while the one founded on the rock 
remains as secure as before the storm began. 

We are amazed when we see what a vast 
amount of truth and what a marvelous variety of 
illustrations were used in that sermon. Now 
that was a mountain-top experience for the 
disciples. It was the mountain-top of leaching. 
Christ lifted them up to a high intellectual and 
moral level, and gave them such instruction in 
spiritual things as he never had given them 
before, It is interesting to note that imme- 
diately afterward Christ led his disciples down 
the mountain into the valley, and the first greet- 



UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 187 



ing that came to them was from the poor leper, 
who said, 4 'Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make 
me clean." And Jesus cleansed the leper. 
Scarce was that good deed done than the cen- 
turion came to him, beseeching him for his serv- 
ant who was very sick, and Christ spoke the word 
of healing for him. Then he came into the house 
where a woman was sick with fever, and as he 
touched her hand the fever left her. And so it 
went on, one thing after another, showing the 
disciples that we go up onto the mountain of 
truth to be instructed and to get wisdom only 
that we may be of service. People go to school, 
many times, and cultivate their minds with an 
entirely wrong idea of what culture means. 
They think of culture as a selfish thing; they 
want education and intellectual training simply 
for their own personal enjoyment; but the teach- 
ing of Christ's Sermon on the Mount and the 
deeds that followed it is that knowledge is given 
us that we may put it to work. Culture is noth- 
ing, or worse than nothing, unless it makes us 
better servants, better helpers, of our fellow 
men. 

Another illustration of this legitimate kind of 
ups and downs of the Christian life is seen when 
Jesus took some of his disciples with him up on- 
to a high mountain, and there was transfigured 
before them, and Moses and Elijah came and 
talked with him concerning the atonement which 
he was to make for the sins of the world. It was 



x88 UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 



a time of great spiritual exaltation to the dis- 
ciples. They caught a new vision of the beauty 
and majesty of their divine Lord. Their hearts 
were so happy and satisfied about it that Peter 
wanted to build three tabernacles and stay there. 
But a little later Christ leads them down the 
mountain again, and the first person that meets 
them is a father with a poor afflicted child pos- 
sessed with evil spirits, whom the other disciples 
had not been able to help. And Christ healed 
the child, and sent the father away with his little 
boy, full of gratitude and worship. And so these 
disciples who had been ready to linger on the 
Mount of Transfiguration were made to know 
that God takes us up into moments of lofty feel- 
ing and high emotions, that he gives us visions of 
the majesty and glory of Christ, not that we may 
linger there to build tabernacles on the mountain- 
tops, but rather that we may be encouraged and 
strengthened to come down again into the valley 
of e very-day life, and be able in self-denying 
service for our Lord to conquer the devils that 
afflict men. 

These are the kinds of ups and downs that be- 
long to the true Christian career. It is right to 
make money, it is right to get culture, it is right 
to have lofty hours of worship and transfigura- 
tion ; but riches and culture and Christian experi- 
ence and communion must all be regarded by us 
as rich gifts put into our hands to make us more 
helpful in sharing the burdens and healing the 



UPS AND DOWNS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 189 



afflictions and sorrows of our fellow men. Whit- 
tier wrote truly when he said : 

' 'The meal unshared is food unblest: 
Thou hoard' st in vain what love should spend; 
Self-ease is pain ; thy only rest 
Is labor for a worthy end. ' ' 



THE CHRISTIAN'S THREE HOMES 

Over in New England they are making more 
every year of what they call 4 4 Old Home Week." 
They choose a week in summer or early autumn 
which is to be celebrated as a week of reminis- 
cence and home-comings. Invitations are sent 
all over the United States, across the sea, and all 
over the world where the sons and daughters of 
the little town or village have wandered. And 
many of them come home for that week. The 
day it opens, and, indeed, all the week, is full of 
beautiful incidents of reunion. I came down the 
railroad one day in New Hampshire, and passed 
through several towns which were celebrating 
this festival of "Old Home Week." At every 
station where such was the case bunting was in 
the air on all sides. The houses were covered 
with flags as though it were the fourth of July. 
Hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of people 
were at the depot to meet the train. The hacks 
and carriages were gay with flags, and with the 
printed ensign, "Welcome Home," on them. 
The band of music was there to lead the proces- 
sion as the visitors left the train. The pathos of 
it was in the very air one breathed. There were 
tears of welcome on scores of faces. I rode in 
the train with two gray-haired men who when 

190 



THE CHRISTIAN'S THREE HOMES 191 



they were boys had gone away from the town 
where they got off to take their part in the cele- 
bration. They had been away a great many 
years, and both had been very successful. They 
had won honorable names for themselves, and 
now they were coming home to see their com- 
rades, the boys and girls they had gone to school 
with, who were now, like themselves, old men 
and women. They could not talk to me about it 
without tears, and yet their hearts were glad. 
The tears were a tribute to that love of home 
which is in the heart of man. Home is the most 
comprehensive word of human tenderness. It 
has been well said that "mother" is the sweetest 
word in any language, but the word "home" is 
still more comprehensive and precious, for it 
takes all the loved ones of the dear fireside into 
its gentle arms. As we get older we agree more 
perfectly with John Howard Payne, the homeless 
exile, who wrote man's sweetest song about home : 

" 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home! 

A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, 

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 

There's no place like home ! 

"An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; 

Oh! give me my lowly thatch'd cottage again ! 

The birds, singing gaily, that came at my call — 

Give me them ! — and the peace of mind dearer than all. 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 

There's no place like home!" 



i 9 2 THE CHRISTIAN'S THREE HOMES 



The Christian has still another home that is 
very precious to him, and that is his church 
home. I am very, very sorry for any Christian 
who has not found some church that is so much 
more precious to him than any other that it is in 
a very tender sense home to him. Some people 
fritter away the possibilities of such an experience 
by tramping about from one church to another, 
until they become in a moral and spiritual way 
like the vagrant who tramps about from one spot 
to another, eating what he can beg or steal, until 
he loses all sense of home and perhaps the very 
power to enjoy it. Some people simply get to 
be just sermon-tasters, Gospel vagrants, church 
tramps, who go wandering around, mere curiosity- 
seekers after every new sensation. They are 
great sponges, sustaining such religious life as 
they may possess, which is never very rich, from 
what they can beg or borrow or steal in the 
church where they camp for the day or night. 
They not only get no sense of home, and form no 
home ties, but they soon so deteriorate in their 
own nature that it is almost impossible for them 
to become helpful and beloved members of a 
home. A home is not a mere association of 
tramps ; it is held together by ties, not only of 
love and sympathy, but of mutual responsibility 
and care and toil. So in a church home we get 
the home feeling as we get the. feeling of responsi- 
bility for it, and as we come to regard it not only as 
a place where there is a feast, and where we may 



THE CHRISTIAN'S THREE HOMES 193 



be fed, but a place where we may feed others; a 
place where we may bear the burden as well as 
enjoy the blessings; where we may share the fel- 
lowship of Christ and his people in service as well 
as in benediction. It is sweet to have a church 
home, where somebody relies on us; where some- 
body misses us if we are absent; where some- 
body lifts their eyes to us for sympathy and 
fellowship ; where we run our roots down in the 
garden of God and flourish under the great Gar- 
dener. 

But there is still another home dear to the 
Christian, and that is our final home in heaven. 
We are only here on the earth for awhile, and 
home is speedily broken up as the children grow 
up into manhood and womanhood, and go away 
to college or to business or to build homes of their 
own. I met a good woman at a conference the 
other day, a minister's wife, and she said to me: 
"Just think of it, my baby has grown old enough 
to go to Germany to college, and there's nobody 
at home now but just my husband and myself." 
And a quick tear came into her eye as she said 
laughingly: "And that' s w T hy I am at confer- 
ence." The home was broken, and soon death 
breaks it. And what is true of the first home is 
true of the second; the church homes change and 
pass away. But we are going home where all 
these things will cease, and we shall be at home 
forever. If we are living in the right spirit, and 
serving God with loving heart, this thought of the 



i 9 4 THE CHRISTIAN'S THREE HOMES 



heavenly home gets sweeter every year. Every 
year there are more people there that we know. 
Every year the current tugs more at the keel of 
our ship, and love's magnetism pulls harder at 
our heart, until we long to be at home with the 
dear ones who have gone ahead of us. Many feel 
as Jean Ingelow sung in her little poem, "Long- 
ing for Home" : 

"I pray you what is the nest to me, 

My empty nest? 
And what is the shore where I stood to see 

My boat sail down to the West? 
Can I call that home where I anchor yet, 

Though my good man has sailed? 
Can I call that home where my nest was set, 

Now all its hope hath failed? 
Nay, but the port where my sailor went, 

And the land where my nestlings be : 
There is the home where my thoughts are sent, 

The only home for me — 

Ah me!" 



War - 2*7 1991 



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